Overview
ISO 16610-85:2013 - part of the ISO 16610 series on Geometrical Product Specifications (GPS) - defines terminology, concepts and requirements for morphological areal filters: segmentation. The standard focuses on areal (surface) segmentation and specifically describes the watershed segmentation method and the Wolf pruning method. It assumes a continuous surface and replaces the previous Annex A (Segmentation) of ISO 25178-2:2012.
Key topics and requirements
- Terminology and feature definitions: clear definitions for peaks, pits, Maxwellian hills/dales, course and ridge lines, saddles, contour lines and other topographic features used in areal segmentation.
- Segmentation concept: segmentation is defined as a filtration operation that partitions a surface into mutually exclusive events (regions). The standard formalizes a segmentation function and three segmentation properties (P1, P2, P3) governing allocation of events into significant and insignificant sets.
- Watershed segmentation: conceptual description using the “filling dales (or hills) with water” analogy to determine saddles where overflow between adjacent regions occurs - a central method for areal partitioning.
- Pruning and change trees: introduction of the change tree (graphical representation of contour lines vs. height) and the concept of pruning to simplify change trees by removing lines from peaks or pits to connected saddles.
- Wolf pruning: defined pruning strategy that removes peaks/pits in order of increasing local peak/pit height up to a specified Wolf peak/pit height. Height discrimination is defined as the nesting index for Wolf pruning. The standard notes that Wolf pruning changes local heights as the tree is simplified.
- Normative references and annexes: references ISO 16610‑1 and ISO 25178‑2:2012. Informative annexes cover examples, relationships to filtration/matrix models and concept diagrams.
Applications and users
ISO 16610-85:2013 is intended for professionals and organizations involved in surface metrology and GPS-based filtering:
- Metrology engineers and quality control specialists analyzing surface texture, roughness and topographic features.
- Software developers and instrument vendors implementing areal segmentation, watershed algorithms and pruning strategies in surface analysis tools.
- Researchers in tribology, materials science and manufacturing who require standardized segmentation for reproducible analysis.
- Standards committees and document authors aligning filtration and feature-extraction methods with the GPS framework.
Related standards
- ISO 16610-1 (filtration basic terminology)
- ISO 25178-2:2012 (surface texture: areal - terms and parameters)
- Other parts of ISO 16610 series (morphological and areal filters) for broader filtration methods and implementations.
Keywords: ISO 16610-85:2013, morphological areal filters, segmentation, watershed segmentation, Wolf pruning, GPS, surface texture, filtration, change tree, height discrimination.