  This paper presents a method for extraction and analysis of curve--type
structures which consist of disconnected components. Such structures are found
in electron--microscopy (EM) images of metal nanograins, which are widely used
in the field of nanosensor technology.
  The topography of metal nanograins in compound nanomaterials is crucial to
nanosensor characteristics. The method of completing such templates consists of
three steps. In the first step, a local Gaussian filter is used with different
weights for each neighborhood. In the second step, an adaptive morphology
operation is applied to detect the endpoints of curve segments and connect
them. In the last step, pruning is employed to extract a curve which optimally
fits the template.
