Object Detection With Component-Graphs in Multi-Band Images: Application to Source Detection in Astronomical Images

In the context of mathematical morphology, component-graphs are complex but powerful structures for multi-band image modeling, processing, and analysis. In this work, we propose a novel multi-band object detection method relying on the component-graphs and statistical hypothesis tests. Our analysis shows that component-graphs are better at capturing image structures compared to the classical component-trees, with significantly higher detection capacity. Besides, we introduce two filtering algorithms to identify duplicated and partial nodes in the component-graphs. The proposed method, applied to the detection of sources on astronomical images, demonstrates a significant improvement in detecting faint objects on both multi-band simulated and real astronomical images compared to the state of the art.