In this paper, we present a novel method for digital nuclear signal processing based on image processing and recognition, which can improve signal-to-noise ratio of digital nuclear signal effectively without changing the signal shape. The digital nuclear signal with a "time-amplitude" series is converted into a grayscale image with adjustable pixel size. Template of the converted image is extracted by means of modern image processing methods, such as spatial digital low-pass filtering, image binary and the skeleton extracting of images. The needed parameters are extracted from the template image. The method of template extracting presented in this paper can be used flexibly to extract template of nuclear signals, whether the whole or even part of that, and got multi templates corresponding to the whole or partial characters of the signals. The results of image processing,along with γ-ray energy spectrum of241 Am acquired by this method, show that the new method provides a way to develop future digital nuclear instruments of high efficiency and flexibility, high density and multi parameters.
