5,755 research outputs found
Model-based learning of local image features for unsupervised texture segmentation
Features that capture well the textural patterns of a certain class of images
are crucial for the performance of texture segmentation methods. The manual
selection of features or designing new ones can be a tedious task. Therefore,
it is desirable to automatically adapt the features to a certain image or class
of images. Typically, this requires a large set of training images with similar
textures and ground truth segmentation. In this work, we propose a framework to
learn features for texture segmentation when no such training data is
available. The cost function for our learning process is constructed to match a
commonly used segmentation model, the piecewise constant Mumford-Shah model.
This means that the features are learned such that they provide an
approximately piecewise constant feature image with a small jump set. Based on
this idea, we develop a two-stage algorithm which first learns suitable
convolutional features and then performs a segmentation. We note that the
features can be learned from a small set of images, from a single image, or
even from image patches. The proposed method achieves a competitive rank in the
Prague texture segmentation benchmark, and it is effective for segmenting
histological images
Image Segmentation with Eigenfunctions of an Anisotropic Diffusion Operator
We propose the eigenvalue problem of an anisotropic diffusion operator for
image segmentation. The diffusion matrix is defined based on the input image.
The eigenfunctions and the projection of the input image in some eigenspace
capture key features of the input image. An important property of the model is
that for many input images, the first few eigenfunctions are close to being
piecewise constant, which makes them useful as the basis for a variety of
applications such as image segmentation and edge detection. The eigenvalue
problem is shown to be related to the algebraic eigenvalue problems resulting
from several commonly used discrete spectral clustering models. The relation
provides a better understanding and helps developing more efficient numerical
implementation and rigorous numerical analysis for discrete spectral
segmentation methods. The new continuous model is also different from
energy-minimization methods such as geodesic active contour in that no initial
guess is required for in the current model. The multi-scale feature is a
natural consequence of the anisotropic diffusion operator so there is no need
to solve the eigenvalue problem at multiple levels. A numerical implementation
based on a finite element method with an anisotropic mesh adaptation strategy
is presented. It is shown that the numerical scheme gives much more accurate
results on eigenfunctions than uniform meshes. Several interesting features of
the model are examined in numerical examples and possible applications are
discussed
An Automatic Level Set Based Liver Segmentation from MRI Data Sets
A fast and accurate liver segmentation method is a challenging work in medical image analysis area. Liver segmentation is an important process for computer-assisted diagnosis, pre-evaluation of liver transplantation and therapy planning of liver tumors. There are several advantages of magnetic resonance imaging such as free form ionizing radiation and good contrast visualization of soft tissue. Also, innovations in recent technology and image acquisition techniques have made magnetic resonance imaging a major tool in modern medicine. However, the use of magnetic resonance images for liver segmentation has been slow when we compare applications with the central nervous systems and musculoskeletal. The reasons are irregular shape, size and position of the liver, contrast agent effects and similarities of the gray values of neighbor organs. Therefore, in this study, we present a fully automatic liver segmentation method by using an approximation of the level set based contour evolution from T2 weighted magnetic resonance data sets. The method avoids solving partial differential equations and applies only integer operations with a two-cycle segmentation algorithm. The efficiency of the proposed approach is achieved by applying the algorithm to all slices with a constant number of iteration and performing the contour evolution without any user defined initial contour. The obtained results are evaluated with four different similarity measures and they show that the automatic segmentation approach gives successful results
Graph Spectral Image Processing
Recent advent of graph signal processing (GSP) has spurred intensive studies
of signals that live naturally on irregular data kernels described by graphs
(e.g., social networks, wireless sensor networks). Though a digital image
contains pixels that reside on a regularly sampled 2D grid, if one can design
an appropriate underlying graph connecting pixels with weights that reflect the
image structure, then one can interpret the image (or image patch) as a signal
on a graph, and apply GSP tools for processing and analysis of the signal in
graph spectral domain. In this article, we overview recent graph spectral
techniques in GSP specifically for image / video processing. The topics covered
include image compression, image restoration, image filtering and image
segmentation
Localizing Region-Based Active Contours
©2008 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or distribution to servers or lists, or to reuse any copyrighted component of this work in other works must be obtained from the IEEE. This material is presented to ensure timely dissemination of scholarly and technical work. Copyright and all rights therein are retained by authors or by other copyright holders. All persons copying this information are expected to adhere to the terms and constraints invoked by each author's copyright. In most cases, these works may not be reposted without the explicit permission of the copyright holder.DOI: 10.1109/TIP.2008.2004611In this paper, we propose a natural framework that allows any region-based segmentation energy to be re-formulated in a local way. We consider local rather than global image statistics and evolve a contour based on local information. Localized contours are capable of segmenting objects with heterogeneous feature profiles that would be difficult to capture correctly using a standard global method. The presented technique is versatile enough to be used with any global region-based active contour energy and instill in it the benefits of localization. We describe this framework and demonstrate the localization of three well-known energies in order to illustrate how our framework can be applied to any energy. We then compare each localized energy to its global counterpart to show the improvements that can be achieved. Next, an in-depth study of the behaviors of these energies in response to the degree of localization is given. Finally, we show results on challenging images to illustrate the robust and accurate segmentations that are possible with this new class of active contour models
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