A fair comparison of many max-tree computation algorithms (Extended version of the paper submitted to ISMM 2013

With the development of connected filters for the last decade, many algorithms have been proposed to compute the max-tree. Max-tree allows to compute the most advanced connected operators in a simple way. However, no fair comparison of algorithms has been proposed yet and the choice of an algorithm over an other depends on many parameters. Since the need of fast algorithms is obvious for production code, we present an in depth comparison of five algorithms and some variations of them in a unique framework. Finally, a decision tree will be proposed to help user in choosing the right algorithm with respect to their data.