Harry Blum (January 30, 1924 – April 19, 1987) was a researcher at the

National Institutes of Health The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in 1887 and is part of the United States Department of Health and Human Service ...

, known for his work in 1967 introducing the

medial axis The medial axis of an object is the set of all points having more than one closest point on the object's boundary. Originally referred to as the topological skeleton, it was introduced in 1967 by Harry Blum as a tool for biological shape reco ...

and

grassfire transform In image processing, the grassfire transform is the computation of the distance from a pixel to the border of a region. It can be described as "setting fire" to the borders of an image region to yield descriptors such as the region's skeleton or med ...

of a shape, and more generally for his work on shape analysis,

topological skeleton In shape analysis, skeleton (or topological skeleton) of a shape is a thin version of that shape that is equidistant to its boundaries. The skeleton usually emphasizes geometrical and topological properties of the shape, such as its connectivit ...

ization, biological form, and

visual perception Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual percept ...

Life

Blum was originally from

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, where he was born on January 30, 1924. During World War II, he worked for the Navy in the

New York Naval Shipyard The Brooklyn Navy Yard (originally known as the New York Navy Yard) is a shipyard and industrial complex in northwest Brooklyn in New York City, New York, U.S. The Navy Yard is located on the East River in Wallabout Bay, a semicircular bend ...

. After the war, he became an engineer for the

New York City Subway The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system in New York City serving the New York City boroughs, boroughs of Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx. It is owned by the government of New York City and leased to the New York City Tr ...

before going to

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

, where he graduated in 1950. From 1950 to 1958 he worked for the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

at the

Rome Air Development Center Rome Laboratory (Rome Air Development Center until 1991) is a U.S. Air Force research laboratory for " command, control, and communications" research and development and is responsible for planning and executing the USAF science and technology pr ...

, also earning a master's degree in

electrical engineering Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems that use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York, United States. It was established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church but has been nonsectarian since 1920 ...

in 1958. From 1958 to 1960 he worked for

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

at the

SHAPE Technical Centre Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) Technical Centre (STC) was the agency within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe , SHAPE command that conducted air defence resesearch and de ...

in the Netherlands, and from 1960 to 1967 he worked for the

Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosphere ...

, where he began his work on biological and visual shape description. He joined the

, in the Lab of Statistical and Mathematical Methodology of the Division of Computer Research, in 1967, and retired in 1982. He died on April 19, 1987.

Selected publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Blum, Harry 1924 births 1987 deaths Cornell University alumni Syracuse University alumni National Institutes of Health faculty