Fuzzy image segmentation using location and intensity information

The segmentation results of any clustering algorithm are very sensitive to the features used in the similarity measure and the object types, which reduce the generalization capability of the algorithm. The previously developed algorithm called image segmentation using fuzzy clustering incorporating spatial information (FCSI) merged the independently segmented results generated by fuzzy clustering-based on pixel intensity and pixel location. The main disadvantages of this algorithm are that a perceptually selected threshold does not consider any semantic information and also produces unpredictable segmentation results for objects (regions) covering the entire image. This paper directly addresses these issues by introducing a new algorithm called fuzzy image segmentation using location and intensity (FSLI) by modifying the original FCSI algorithm. It considers the topological feature namely, connectivity and the similarity based on pixel intensity and surface variation. Qualitative and quantitative results confirm the considerable improvements achieved using the FSLI algorithm compared with FCSI and the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm for all three alternatives, namely clustering using only pixel intensity, pixel location and a combination of the two, for a range of sample of images

Image segmentation using fuzzy clustering incorporating spatial information

Effective image segmentation cannot be achieved for a fuzzy clustering algorithm based on using only pixel intensity, pixel locations or a combination of the two. Often if both pixel intensity and pixel location are combined, one feature tends to minimize the effect of other, thus degrading the resulting segmentation. This paper directly addresses this problem by introducing a new algorithm called image segmentation using fuzzy clustering incorporating spatial information (FCSI), which merges the segmented results independently generated by fuzzy clustering-based on pixel intensity and the location of pixels. Qualitative results show the superiority of the FCSI algorithm compared with the fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm for all three alternatives, clustering using only pixel intensity, pixel locations and a combination of the two

Fuzzy Clustering for Image Segmentation Using Generic Shape Information

The performance of clustering algorithms for image segmentation are highly sensitive to the features used and types of objects in the image, which ultimately limits their generalization capability. This provides strong motivation to investigate integrating shape information into the clustering framework to improve the generality of these algorithms. Existing shape-based clustering techniques mainly focus on circular and elliptical clusters and so are unable to segment arbitrarily-shaped objects. To address this limitation, this paper presents a new shape-based algorithm called fuzzy clustering for image segmentation using generic shape information (FCGS), which exploits the B-spline representation of an object's shape in combination with the Gustafson-Kessel clustering algorithm. Qualitative and quantitative results for FCGS confirm its superior segmentation performance consistently compared to well-established shape-based clustering techniques, for a wide range of test images comprising various regular and arbitrary-shaped objects

Automatic Feature Set Selection for Merging Image Segmentation Results Using Fuzzy Clustering

The image segmentation performance of clustering algorithms is highly dependent on the features used and the type of objects contained in the image, which limits the generalization ability of such algorithms. As a consequence, a fuzzy image segmentation using suppressed fuzzy c-means clustering (FSSC) algorithm was proposed that merged the initially segmented regions produced by a fuzzy clustering algorithm, using two different feature sets each comprising two features from pixel location, pixel intensity and a combination of both, which considered objects with similar surface variations (SSV), the arbitrariness of fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithm using pixel location and the connectedness property of objects. The feature set selection for the initial segmentation in the merging technique was however, inaccurate because it did not consider all possible feature set combinations and also manually defined the threshold used to identify objects having SSV. To overcome these limitations, a new automatic feature set selection for merging image segmentation results using fuzzy clustering (AFMSF) algorithm is proposed, which considers the best feature set selection and also calculates the threshold based upon human visual perception. Both qualitative and quantitative analysis prove the superiority of AFMSF algorithm compared with other clustering techniques including FSSC, FCM, possibilistic c-means (PCM) and SFCM, for different image types

Fuzzy Clustering Image Segmentation Based on Particle Swarm Optimization

Image segmentation refers to the technology to segment the image into different regions with different characteristics and to extract useful objectives, and it is a key step from image processing to image analysis. Based on the comprehensive study of image segmentation technology, this paper analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of the existing fuzzy clustering algorithms; integrates the particle swarm optimization (PSO) with the characteristics of global optimization and rapid convergence and fuzzy clustering (FC) algorithm with fuzzy clustering effects starting from the perspective of particle swarm and fuzzy membership restrictions and gets a PSO-FC image segmentation algorithm so as to effectively avoid being trapped into the local optimum and improve the stability and reliability of clustering algorithm. The experimental results show that this new PSO-FC algorithm has excellent image segmentation effects

Noise-robust method for image segmentation

Segmentation of noisy images is one of the most challenging problems in image analysis and any improvement of segmentation methods can highly influence the performance of many image processing applications. In automated image segmentation, the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering has been widely used because of its ability to model uncertainty within the data, applicability to multi-modal data and fairly robust behaviour. However, the standard FCM algorithm does not consider any information about the spatial linage context and is highly sensitive to noise and other imaging artefacts. Considering above mentioned problems, we developed a new FCM-based approach for the noise-robust fuzzy clustering and we present it in this paper. In this new iterative algorithm we incorporated both spatial and feature space information into the similarity measure and the membership function. We considered that spatial information depends on the relative location and features of the neighbouring pixels. The performance of the proposed algorithm is tested on synthetic image with different noise levels and real images. Experimental quantitative and qualitative segmentation results show that our method efficiently preserves the homogeneity of the regions and is more robust to noise than other FCM-based methods

A Comparative Analysis of K-Means and Fuzzy C-Means Clustering Algorithms Based on CT Liver Image

Image processing techniques are broadly used in different areas of medical imaging to detect different types of abnormalities. The clustering algorithm is used in image processing for image segmentation. Image processing technique can help to detect the tumor and also it helps to identify the affected parts of the organs. This paper describes two clustering algorithm K-Means and Fuzzy C-Means clustering to compare their performance based on CT liver image. The segmentation result of K-Means is compared to the segmentation result of Fuzzy C-Means clustering. Experiments were conducted to evaluate their performance based on some criteria such as computational time, energy, homogeneity, PSNR etc