higherthansurrounding

Higherthansurrounding is a coined term used to describe a value that exceeds its surrounding values. It is not a widely recognized technical term; when encountered, it typically serves as a descriptive label for a local extremum or peak in a data set, function, or spatial field.

In mathematics, the concept corresponds to a strict local maximum: there exists a neighborhood around a point where the function value at the point is greater than all neighboring values. In digital image processing and geographic information systems, it can refer to a pixel or location whose attributes (such as brightness or elevation) are higher than those of nearby pixels or cells.

Context defines the surrounding: the neighborhood can be defined by radius, a fixed-size window, a metric-based ball, or a morphological structuring element. The choice of neighborhood affects what counts as higher than surrounding and thus what is identified as a higherthansurrounding.

Related concepts include local maximum, peak detection, prominence in topography, maxima in optimization, and non-maximum suppression in image analysis.

Because the term is not standardized, users should specify the neighborhood definition and comparison metric when employing it to avoid ambiguity.