how to seperate into two unique shapes

Hi, I want to seperate these elliptic shapes into two distinct shapes. Is it possible? please help.

Thanks

[KSSV]

Same question..

http://in.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/305794-how-to-seperate-overlapping-circles

[Huseyin]

Yes Dr.Siva, However these shapes have thick borders and when I detect the contours, I couldn't combine the intersection points and the distinct parts to make 2 different elliptical shapes. If you help, I will be very glad. Thank you.

Answer 1

[Image Analyst]

Try thresholding, then skeletonizing with bwmorph(). Then find crossing points with bwmorph and remove them to break it up into parts. Then use edge linking to join nearby curves with the same slope. Then dilate out to the original size.

[Huseyin]

Dear Image Analyst, Thanks for your reply. But this explanation sounds too advance for me. Could you please share the code for this example? So I can figure how it works part by part.