Abstract: Component tree method is the further development of mathematical morphology theory and method. It uses a series of threshold sets to generate connected components, and constructs the hierarchical relations on them. A series of efficient image processing algorithms developed by using the component tree method are very suitable for the rapid extraction of the underlying features of the image, and have been widely used in many fields, especially in the field of medical image processing. In this paper, the development and present situation of component tree methods are reviewed systematically, and the existing component tree building algorithms and image processing algorithms based on component trees are summarized. Finally, this paper looks forward to the research of component tree in multi-valued（color） image correlation field, the fast construction of tree, and the parallel processing algorithm.

Key words: mathematical morphology, component tree, image processing

摘要： 组件树方法是数学形态学理论及方法的进一步发展，它利用一系列阈值截集产生连通分量，构造其上的层次关系。利用组件树方法发展出的一系列高效的图像处理算法，非常适合图像底层特征的快速提取，在广大的领域，尤其是医学图像处理领域，得到了广泛的应用。对组件树方法的发展和现状进行了系统的回顾，概述了现存的组件树建树算法以及基于组件树的图像处理算法。对组件树在多值（彩色）图像相关领域、树的快速构建、并行化处理算法方面的研究进行了展望。

关键词: 数学形态学, 组件树, 图像处理