  Network Extraction algorithms from X-ray microcomputed tomography have become
a routine method to obtain pore connectivity and pore morphology information
from porous media. The main approaches for this extraction are either based on
Max Ball Algorithm or Medial Axis Extraction. The first is a robust method to
separate the pore space into pore and throats, which provides the pore and
throat sizes distributions directly. The second simplifies the medium by
thinning the volume into a one voxel wide centerline that preserves the
volume's topological information. Since each method has drastically different
implementations, it is not usual to use both to characterize the porous
structure. This work presents a method to extract a simplified centerline of
porous materials by adding few more steps to the well-established Max Ball
algorithm. Results for sandstones and carbonate rock samples show that this
Medial-Axis network can be used for single phase flow simulations, as well as
preserves the mediums morphology.
