34,885 research outputs found
Color image segmentation using a self-initializing EM algorithm
This paper presents a new method based on the Expectation-Maximization (EM) algorithm that we apply for color image segmentation. Since this algorithm partitions the data based on an initial set of mixtures, the color segmentation provided by the EM algorithm is highly dependent on the starting condition (initialization stage). Usually the initialization procedure selects the color seeds randomly and often this procedure forces the EM algorithm to converge to numerous local minima and produce inappropriate results. In this paper we propose a simple and yet effective solution to initialize the EM algorithm with relevant color seeds. The resulting self initialised EM algorithm has been included in the development of an adaptive image segmentation scheme that has been applied to a large number of color images. The experimental data indicates that the refined initialization procedure leads to improved color segmentation
Machine learning of hierarchical clustering to segment 2D and 3D images
We aim to improve segmentation through the use of machine learning tools
during region agglomeration. We propose an active learning approach for
performing hierarchical agglomerative segmentation from superpixels. Our method
combines multiple features at all scales of the agglomerative process, works
for data with an arbitrary number of dimensions, and scales to very large
datasets. We advocate the use of variation of information to measure
segmentation accuracy, particularly in 3D electron microscopy (EM) images of
neural tissue, and using this metric demonstrate an improvement over competing
algorithms in EM and natural images.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Computerized Analysis of Magnetic Resonance Images to Study Cerebral Anatomy in Developing Neonates
The study of cerebral anatomy in developing neonates is of great importance for
the understanding of brain development during the early period of life. This
dissertation therefore focuses on three challenges in the modelling of cerebral
anatomy in neonates during brain development. The methods that have been
developed all use Magnetic Resonance Images (MRI) as source data.
To facilitate study of vascular development in the neonatal period, a set of image
analysis algorithms are developed to automatically extract and model cerebral
vessel trees. The whole process consists of cerebral vessel tracking from
automatically placed seed points, vessel tree generation, and vasculature
registration and matching. These algorithms have been tested on clinical Time-of-
Flight (TOF) MR angiographic datasets.
To facilitate study of the neonatal cortex a complete cerebral cortex segmentation
and reconstruction pipeline has been developed. Segmentation of the neonatal
cortex is not effectively done by existing algorithms designed for the adult brain
because the contrast between grey and white matter is reversed. This causes pixels
containing tissue mixtures to be incorrectly labelled by conventional methods. The
neonatal cortical segmentation method that has been developed is based on a novel
expectation-maximization (EM) method with explicit correction for mislabelled
partial volume voxels. Based on the resulting cortical segmentation, an implicit
surface evolution technique is adopted for the reconstruction of the cortex in
neonates. The performance of the method is investigated by performing a detailed
landmark study.
To facilitate study of cortical development, a cortical surface registration algorithm
for aligning the cortical surface is developed. The method first inflates extracted
cortical surfaces and then performs a non-rigid surface registration using free-form
deformations (FFDs) to remove residual alignment. Validation experiments using
data labelled by an expert observer demonstrate that the method can capture local
changes and follow the growth of specific sulcus
Recursive Training of 2D-3D Convolutional Networks for Neuronal Boundary Detection
Efforts to automate the reconstruction of neural circuits from 3D electron
microscopic (EM) brain images are critical for the field of connectomics. An
important computation for reconstruction is the detection of neuronal
boundaries. Images acquired by serial section EM, a leading 3D EM technique,
are highly anisotropic, with inferior quality along the third dimension. For
such images, the 2D max-pooling convolutional network has set the standard for
performance at boundary detection. Here we achieve a substantial gain in
accuracy through three innovations. Following the trend towards deeper networks
for object recognition, we use a much deeper network than previously employed
for boundary detection. Second, we incorporate 3D as well as 2D filters, to
enable computations that use 3D context. Finally, we adopt a recursively
trained architecture in which a first network generates a preliminary boundary
map that is provided as input along with the original image to a second network
that generates a final boundary map. Backpropagation training is accelerated by
ZNN, a new implementation of 3D convolutional networks that uses multicore CPU
parallelism for speed. Our hybrid 2D-3D architecture could be more generally
applicable to other types of anisotropic 3D images, including video, and our
recursive framework for any image labeling problem
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