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FillingTransform[image]

gives a version of image with all extended minima filled.

FillingTransform[image,marker]

fills extended minima in regions where at least one corresponding element of marker is nonzero.

FillingTransform[image,h]

fills only extended minima of depth h or less.

Details and Options
Details and Options Details and Options
Examples  
Basic Examples  
Scope  
Applications  
Properties & Relations  
Neat Examples  
See Also
Related Guides
History
Cite this Page

FillingTransform

FillingTransform[image]

gives a version of image with all extended minima filled.

FillingTransform[image,marker]

fills extended minima in regions where at least one corresponding element of marker is nonzero.

FillingTransform[image,h]

fills only extended minima of depth h or less.

Details and Options

  • FillingTransform, also known as morphological filling, can fill holes in binary images or local extended minima in grayscale and color images.
  • An extended minimum is a connected set of pixels surrounded by pixels that all have a greater value than the pixels in the set.
  • FillingTransform[image] fills all extended minima by lifting their values to the lowest value found among the surrounding pixels.
  • The marker can be given as a matrix or an image of the same dimensions as image.
  • FillingTransform works with arbitrary 2D and 3D images.
  • The following options can be given:
  • CornerNeighborsTruewhether to include corner neighbors
    Padding0padding method to use
  • For grayscale images, FillingTransform[image,h,Padding->1] effectively computes the h-minima transform.

Examples

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Basic Examples  (2)

Fill holes in a binary image:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image]]

Fill a hole in a 3D image:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image]]

Scope  (3)

Fill all image holes:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image]]

Use a marker to specify the holes to be filled:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image], [image]]

Compute the h-minima transform of a grayscale image by filling shallow, dark regions:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image], .5, Padding -> 1]

Applications  (5)

Fill the holes of objects in an image:

Wolfram Language code: i = [image];
Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[i]

Find the innermost components in a binary image:

Wolfram Language code: i = [image]; m = SelectComponents[i, Length[#EmbeddedComponents] === 0&]

Use the dilated innermost components to fill the innermost holes:

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[i, Dilation[m, 1]]

Use hole-filling as a preprocessing step for image segmentation:

Wolfram Language code: WatershedComponents[FillingTransform[[image], .3]]//Colorize

Remove background features from an astronomical image:

Wolfram Language code: img = [image]; ImageSubtract[img, ColorNegate@FillingTransform@ColorNegate[img]]

Negate the image to fill bright holes (local maxima):

Wolfram Language code: ColorNegate[FillingTransform[ColorNegate[[image]]]]

Properties & Relations  (1)

FillingTransform will not fill holes touching the borders of the image.

Wolfram Language code: FillingTransform[[image]]

Neat Examples  (1)

Create an artistic effect by extracting areas that have local minima:

Wolfram Language code: img = [image];
Wolfram Language code: ImageDifference[img, FillingTransform[img]]//ImageAdjust//ColorNegate
Wolfram Research (2010), FillingTransform, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html (updated 2012).

Text

Wolfram Research (2010), FillingTransform, Wolfram Language function, https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html (updated 2012).

CMS

Wolfram Language. 2010. "FillingTransform." Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Wolfram Research. Last Modified 2012. https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html.

APA

Wolfram Language. (2010). FillingTransform. Wolfram Language & System Documentation Center. Retrieved from https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html

BibTeX

@misc{reference.wolfram_2026_fillingtransform, author="Wolfram Research", title="{FillingTransform}", year="2012", howpublished="\url{https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html}", note=[Accessed: 12-June-2026]}

BibLaTeX

@online{reference.wolfram_2026_fillingtransform, organization={Wolfram Research}, title={FillingTransform}, year={2012}, url={https://reference.wolfram.com/language/ref/FillingTransform.html}, note=[Accessed: 12-June-2026]}