Separating Connected Objects Effectively in Image

Hello, I am attempting to separate several connected objects that are often only connected by one pixel (see image). I want to have all connected objects be separate from each other i.e. remove the particular pixel that's causing the issue. I have been trying to use imerode function but I keep on removing more pixels than I would like. Any advice would be greatly beneficial.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

They are separated if you use 4-connectedness. For subsequent operations, like bwconncomp() or bwlabel(), just specify 4-connectedness instead of the default 8-connectedness.

Answer 2

[Jose Marques]

Hello. Have you tried "imopen"?

https://www.mathworks.com/help/images/ref/imopen.html

Please, post your code and figures so we can help you.

[Serg Zhelezniak]

im0 = image;

thresh = 190;

%Threshold Procedure

im_1a = im0 > thresh;

im_1b = bwareaopen(im_1a,5); %remove less than 5 connected components

im_1c = imerode(im_1b,strel('disk',1)); %erode with disk of radius 1

im_1d = imdilate(im_1c,strel('disk',1)); %dilate with disk of radius 1

figure

subplot(2,1,1) imshow(im_1a) title('im_1a')

subplot(2,1,2) imshow(im_1d) title('im_2d')

Performing erosion and dilation helps a little, but there are still components being connected by single pixel that should be separate (red arrow). My question is whether it is possible just to remove that particular one pixel in a manner preserves the quantity of pixel data present in im_1a.

[Image Analyst]

Again, just use 4-connected like I said in my answer and you won't have the problem!