The main goal of this work is to compare pyramidal structures proposed to solve segmentation tasks. Segmentation algorithms based on regular and irregular pyramids are described, together with the data structures and decimation procedures which encode and manage the information in the pyramid. In order to compare the different segmentation algorithms, we have employed three types of quality measurements: the shift variance measure, the F function and the Q function. 2006 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.