Maximum flow (and minimum cut) algorithms have had a strong impact on
computer vision. In particular, graph cuts algorithms provide a mechanism for
the discrete optimization of an energy functional which has been used in a
variety of applications such as image segmentation, stereo, image stitching and
texture synthesis. Algorithms based on the classical formulation of max-flow
defined on a graph are known to exhibit metrication artefacts in the solution.
Therefore, a recent trend has been to instead employ a spatially continuous
maximum flow (or the dual min-cut problem) in these same applications to
produce solutions with no metrication errors. However, known fast continuous
max-flow algorithms have no stopping criteria or have not been proved to
converge. In this work, we revisit the continuous max-flow problem and show
that the analogous discrete formulation is different from the classical
max-flow problem. We then apply an appropriate combinatorial optimization
technique to this combinatorial continuous max-flow CCMF problem to find a
null-divergence solution that exhibits no metrication artefacts and may be
solved exactly by a fast, efficient algorithm with provable convergence.
Finally, by exhibiting the dual problem of our CCMF formulation, we clarify the
fact, already proved by Nozawa in the continuous setting, that the max-flow and
the total variation problems are not always equivalent.Comment: 26 page
