Geodesic balls in a fuzzy set and fuzzy geodesic mathematical morphology

Although fuzzy operators have deserved a large attention in the Euclidean case, almost nothing exists concerning the geodesic case. In this paper, we address this question, by defining fuzzy geodesic distances between points in a fuzzy set, and geodesic balls in a fuzzy set (based on the comparison of fuzzy numbers), from which we derive fuzzy geodesic mathematical morphology operators. The proposed definitions are valid in any dimension. The main properties of the basic operators are demonstrated. These new operations enhance the set of fuzzy morphological operators, leading to transformations of a fuzzy set conditionally to another fuzzy set. (C) 2000 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.