In binary images, the distance transformation (DT) and the geometrical medial axis are classic tools for shape analysis. In the digital geometry literature, recent articles have demonstrated that fast algorithms can be designed without any approximation of the Euclidean metric. The aim of the paper is to first give an overview of separable techniques to compute the distance transformation, the reverse distance transformation and a discrete medial axis extraction with the Euclidean metric. Then we will focus on performance issues and different applications in shape analysis.