Figure 1.
Effects of the different steps involved in image thresholding for (a) model image consisting of bright sticks that model collagen fibers and 20% Gaussian noise, (f) an acquired collagen fiber image with low signal to noise ratio, and (k) an acquired collagen fiber image with high signal to noise ratio. Adaptive thresholding is performed on those images to achieve the corresponding fields shown on panels (b), (g), and (l). The results of eliminating any pixels that do not belong to a cluster of at least 15 interconnected “on” pixels is shown on panels (c), (h), and (m). Only panel (h) meets the requirements for further processing, which involves erosion and dilation (i) stretching, thresholding, and a final erosion and dilation step (j). The corresponding fiber densities are displayed at the bottom left corner of each panel. Scale