Partial Partitions,Partial Connections and Connective Segmentation

In connective segmentation (Serra in J. Math. Imaging Vis. 24(1):83–130, [2006]), each image determines subsets of the space on which it is “homogeneous”, in such a way that this family of subsets always constitutes a connection (connectivity class); then the segmentation of the image is the partition of space into its connected components according to that connection. Several concrete examples of connective segmentations or of connections on sets, indicate that the space covering requirement of the partition should be relaxed. Furthermore, morphological operations on partitions require the consideration of wider framework. We study thus partial partitions (families of mutually disjoint non-void subsets of the space) and partial connections (where connected components of a set are mutually disjoint but do not necessarily cover the set). We describe some methods for generating partial connections. We investigate the links between the two lattices of partial connections and of partial partitions. We generalize Serra’s characterization of connective segmentation and discuss its relevance. Finally we give some ideas on how the theory of partial connections could lead to improved segmentation algorithms.

Global–local optimizations by hierarchical cuts and climbing energies

Hierarchical segmentation is a multi-scale analysis of an image and provides a series of simplifying nested partitions. Such a hierarchy is rarely an end by itself and requires external criteria or heuristics to solve problems of image segmentation, texture extraction and semantic image labelling. In this theoretical paper we introduce a novel framework: hierarchical cuts, to formulate optimization problems on hierarchies of segmentations. Second we provide the three important notions of h-increasing, singular, and scale increasing energies, necessary to solve the global combinatorial optimization problem of partition selection and which results in linear time dynamic programs. Common families of such energies are summarized, and also a method to generate new ones is described. Finally we demonstrate the application of this framework on problems of image segmentation and texture enhancement.     

Globally Optimal Geodesic Active Contours

An approach to optimal object segmentation in the geodesic active contour framework is presented with application to automated image segmentation. The new segmentation scheme seeks the geodesic active contour of globally minimal energy under the sole restriction that it contains a specified internal point p_int. This internal point selects the object of interest and may be used as the only input parameter to yield a highly automated segmentation scheme. The image to be segmented is represented as a Riemannian space S with an associated metric induced by the image. The metric is an isotropic and decreasing function of the local image gradient at each point in the image, encoding the local homogeneity of image features. Optimal segmentations are then the closed geodesics which partition the object from the background with minimal similarity across the partitioning. An efficient algorithm is presented for the computation of globally optimal segmentations and applied to cell microscopy, x-ray, magnetic resonance and cDNA microarray images.Ben Appleton received degrees in engineering and in science from the University of Queensland in 2001 and was awarded a university medal. In 2002 he began a Ph.D at the University of Queensland in the field of image analysis. He is supported by an Australian Postgraduate Award and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Mathematical and Information Sciences. He has been a teaching assistant in image analysis at the University of Queensland since 2001. He has also contributed 10 research papers to international journals and conferences and was recently awarded the prize for Best Student Paper at Digital Image Computing: Techniques and Applications. His research interests include image segmentation, stereo vision and algorithms.Hugues Talbot received the engineering degree from École Centrale de Paris in 1989, the D.E.A. (Masters) from University Paris VI in 1990 and the Ph.D from École des Mines de Paris in 1993, under the guidance of Dominique Jeulin and Jean Serra. He has been affiliated with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Mathematical and Information Sciences since 1994. He has worked on numerous applied projects in relation with industry, he has contributed more than 30 research papers in international journals and conferences and he has co-edited two sets of international conference proceedings on image analysis. He now also teaches image processing at the University of Sydney, and his research interest include image segmentation, linear structure analysis, texture analysis and algorithms.     

Learning to Combine Bottom-Up and Top-Down Segmentation

Bottom-up segmentation based only on low-level cues is a notoriously difficult problem. This difficulty has lead to recent top-down segmentation algorithms that are based on class-specific image information. Despite the success of top-down algorithms, they often give coarse segmentations that can be significantly refined using low-level cues. This raises the question of how to combine both top-down and bottom-up cues in a principled manner. In this paper we approach this problem using supervised learning. Given a training set of ground truth segmentations we train a fragment-based segmentation algorithm which takes into account both bottom-up and top-down cues simultaneously, in contrast to most existing algorithms which train top-down and bottom-up modules separately. We formulate the problem in the framework of Conditional Random Fields (CRF) and derive a feature induction algorithm for CRF, which allows us to efficiently search over thousands of candidate fragments. Whereas pure top-down algorithms often require hundreds of fragments, our simultaneous learning procedure yields algorithms with a handful of fragments that are combined with low-level cues to efficiently compute high quality segmentations.     

多阈值优化交互式分割算法及其在医学图像中的应用

针对交互式图像分割方法对边界模糊的医学图像进行分割时通常需要用户标记较多的初始种子或进行二次交互的不足,提出了一种简化标记的多阈值优化交互式分割算法。该算法在GrowCut交互式算法基础上通过引入图像灰度直方图的多个阈值自动生成初始种子模板,并利用改进的细胞自动机迭代算法实现图像分割。算法简化了用户操作,提高了分割精度。应用该算法分别对临床100张肝脏图像和牙菌斑图像进行分割,结果显示了该算法的良好性能。     

一种基于数学形态学及融合技术的彩色图像分割方法

提出了一种新的彩色图像分割方法,该方法首先利用数学形态学在3个2维彩色子空间进行图像分割,然后将这些分割结果融合在一起得到最终图像的分割。对于RGB彩色图像,3个子空间分别取为RG、RB和GB。而2维直方图则可看作3维直方图在这3个子空间的投影,对这3个2维直方图分别实施形态学中的watershed分割算法,最后通过区域分裂与合并的方法融合这3个2维空间的图像分割结果,获得最终的图像分割。在计算彩色距离时,使用了CIE（L’a’b’）彩色空间。该方法比直接在3维空间的分割方法既快又节约内存,而且分割效果好。     

A Multiphase Dynamic Labeling Model for Variational Recognition-driven Image Segmentation

We propose a variational framework for the integration of multiple competing shape priors into level set based segmentation schemes. By optimizing an appropriate cost functional with respect to both a level set function and a (vector-valued) labeling function, we jointly generate a segmentation (by the level set function) and a recognition-driven partition of the image domain (by the labeling function) which indicates where to enforce certain shape priors. Our framework fundamentally extends previous work on shape priors in level set segmentation by directly addressing the central question of where to apply which prior. It allows for the seamless integration of numerous shape priors such that—while segmenting both multiple known and unknown objects—the level set process may selectively use specific shape knowledge for simultaneously enhancing segmentation and recognizing shape.     

Multiscale Active Contours

We propose a new multiscale image segmentation model, based on the active contour/snake model and the Polyakov action. The concept of scale, general issue in physics and signal processing, is introduced in the active contour model, which is a well-known image segmentation model that consists of evolving a contour in images toward the boundaries of objects. The Polyakov action, introduced in image processing by Sochen-Kimmel-Malladi in Sochen et al. (1998), provides an efficient mathematical framework to define a multiscale segmentation model because it generalizes the concept of harmonic maps embedded in higher-dimensional Riemannian manifolds such as multiscale images. Our multiscale segmentation model, unlike classical multiscale segmentations which work scale by scale to speed up the segmentation process, uses all scales simultaneously, i.e. the whole scale space, to introduce the geometry of multiscale images in the segmentation process. The extracted multiscale structures will be useful to efficiently improve the robustness and the performance of standard shape analysis techniques such as shape recognition and shape registration. Another advantage of our method is to use not only the Gaussian scale space but also many other multiscale spaces such as the Perona-Malik scale space, the curvature scale space or the Beltrami scale space. Finally, this multiscale segmentation technique is coupled with a multiscale edge detecting function based on the gradient vector flow model, which is able to extract convex and concave object boundaries independent of the initial condition. We apply our multiscale segmentation model on a synthetic image and a medical image.     

基于多光谱的宫颈细胞图像迭代分割算法

详细介绍了一种基于显微多光谱宫颈图像的迭代分割方法,该方法将多光谱分析应用到宫颈显微图像分割中。由于显微宫颈细胞图像十分复杂,普通的分割方法不能解决分割问题,该文给出了一个较好的解决方案。算法首先对大量多光谱波段进行筛选,接着利用细胞的多光谱信息并采用迭代分割算法不断优化分割精度,经过大量实验证明算法具有分割速度快、精度高、算法稳定性好等特点。文中的多光谱波段的筛选对于利用多光谱手段进行其他图像分割都有很大的借鉴意义。     

Automating image segmentation verification and validation by learning test oracles

An image segmentation algorithm delineates (an) object(s) of interest in an image. Its output is referred to as a segmentation. Developing these algorithms is a manual, iterative process involving repetitive verification and validation tasks. This process is time-consuming and depends on the availability of experts, who may be a scarce resource (e.g., medical experts). We propose a framework referred to as Image Segmentation Automated Oracle (ISAO) that uses machine learning to construct an oracle, which can then be used to automatically verify the correctness of image segmentations, thus saving substantial resources and making the image segmentation verification and validation task significantly more efficient. The framework also gives informative feedback to the developer as the segmentation algorithm evolves and provides a systematic means of testing different parametric configurations of the algorithm. During the initial learning phase, segmentations from the first few (optimally two) versions of the segmentation algorithm are manually verified by experts. The similarity of successive segmentations of the same images is also measured in various ways. This information is then fed to a machine learning algorithm to construct a classifier that distinguishes between consistent and inconsistent segmentation pairs (as determined by an expert) based on the values of the similarity measures associated with each segmentation pair. Once the accuracy of the classifier is deemed satisfactory to support a consistency determination, the classifier is then used to determine whether the segmentations that are produced by subsequent versions of the algorithm under test, are (in)consistent with already verified segmentations from previous versions. This information is then used to automatically draw conclusions about the correctness of the segmentations. We have successfully applied this approach to 3D segmentations of the cardiac left ventricle obtained from CT scans and have obtained promising results (accuracies of 95%). Even though more experiments are needed to quantify the effectiveness of the approach in real-world applications, ISAO shows promise in increasing the quality and testing efficiency of image segmentation algorithms.     

音节切分歧义方法研究

音节切分是整句拼音转换的基础,由于拼音的特殊性,存在歧义切分的可能。如果采用最少分词算法只能得到一种切分结果,不能保证整句拼音转换的正确性。提出一种音节切分算法,通过插入音素节点不断构造合法音节节点,进而生成状态空间,遍历算法遍历状态空间可获得所有的切分可能,而当用户进行删除操作时,只需删除部分相关节点。整个状态空间随用户的操作进行局部调整,分布均匀。该算法有利于存在歧义切分问题的整句拼音转换,可从保留下来的所有切分可能中选出一个全局最优的语句候选,保证整句转换的正确性。     

From Inpainting to Active Contours

Background subtraction is an elementary method for detection of foreground objects and their segmentations. Obviously it requires an observation image as well as a background one. In this work we attempt to remove the last requirement by reconstructing the background from the observation image and a guess on the location of the object to be segmented via variational inpainting method. A numerical evaluation of this reconstruction provides a “disocclusion measure” and the correct foreground segmentation region is expected to maximize this measure. This formulation is in fact an optimal control problem, where controls are shapes/regions and states are the corresponding inpaintings. Optimization of the disocclusion measure leads formally to a coupled contour evolution equation, an inpainting equation (the state equation) as well as a linear PDE depending on the inpainting (the adjoint state equation). The contour evolution is implemented in the framework of level sets. Finally, the proposed method is validated on various examples. We focus among others in the segmentation of calcified plaques observed in radiographs from human lumbar aortic regions.     

纹理图像的多尺度分割

纹理图像分割最常用的方法就是基于特征的纹理分割,即首先提取出图像的纹理特征,在利用提取出的纹理特征来进行特征划分.通过对纹理特征进行划分来实现纹理图像分割的过程所面对的主要困难可以概括为:效率和效果.纹理图像分割算法大多具有较高的时间复杂度,这一方面是因为纹理特征提取比较费时,另一方面较高的特征维数导致特征划分过程的计算量通常比较大.本文提出基于图像四叉树的多尺度分割算法来实现实时图像的粗分割,实验表明此算法可以在保持分割精度的前提下大大降低时间复杂度.     

基于空间模式聚类最大熵图像分割算法研究

研究图像分割优化问题,在分割图像中,提取信息受到各种因素影响,分割效果不理想。针对图像分割计算复杂,造成图像分割分辨率低,清晰度不高。同时,当图像中的信息量非常大时,图像分割非常耗时。为了有效地分割图像,提出了一种基于空间模式聚类和最大熵算法原理相结合的图像分割方法。首先对图像采用最大熵算法进行图像分割,为每个熵区域定义特征量。根据不同的特征量计算相似区域之间的欧氏距离和空间距离,从而确定像素聚类中心的距离。然后对分割后的图像区域采用基于空间模式聚类方案进行合并,并对图像进行二值化处理。仿真表明与传统图像分割相比,提高了分割效率,分割出的图像边缘效果清晰,证明了算法的可行性和有效性。     

基于DH-Swin Unet的医学图像分割算法

骨关节疾病自古以来是人类最高发的疾病之一, 随着老龄化的不断加快, 这类疾病日趋广泛, 关节外科医师面临着巨大挑战. 对人体关节的图像分割方法研究可以帮助医生进行临床诊断和治疗, 然而, 由于存在噪声、模糊、对比度低等问题, 医学图像的特征提取比普通图像更具挑战性, 而且目前大多数分割模型在编码器和解码器之间都采用了普通的跳跃连接, 没有注重解决跳跃连接过程中的信息间隙和损失问题. 为解决这些问题, 提出一种基于DH-Swin Unet的医学图像分割算法, 该模型在Swin-Unet模型的基础上, 在跳跃连接中引入密集连接的Swin Transformer块, 并加入混合注意力机制, 来强化网络的特征信息传递. 通过在某三甲医院提供的真实临床数据对所提方法的性能进行评价, 结果表明, 所提出的方法取得了DSC为86.79%、HD为32.05 mm的分割结果, 在关节疾病的临床诊断中具有一定的实用价值.     

基于SIFT特征和图割算法的图像分割方法研究

图割算法是图像分割方法中的一种高效的最优化计算方法,针对图像中目标物体的旋转尺度光照变化导致的分割不准确问题,提出了一种基于SIFT(Scale-Invariant Feature Transform)特征的图割(Graph Cuts)算法;该方法将SIFT特征的尺度旋转不变性和图割算法的准确快速性结合在一起,通过提取图像中物体SIFT特征点做为图割算法的种子点,求解最小能量函数快速从而获得该图像的最优分割;实验结果表明,该方法鲁棒性较好,能准确地分割出目标物体在图像中的轮廓。     

LRSS-Net:轻量级遥感地物分割网络

针对目前基于深度学习的高分辨率遥感图像分割模型由于参数量大、计算复杂而导致高延迟、低响应的问题,提出了一种轻量级遥感地物分割方法,较好的平衡了速度和精度.该方法使用MobileNetV2进行特征粗提取,通过构建空间信息嵌入分支实现不同尺度的特征细提取,不同层次之间引入密集连接以获取密集的上下文信息.解码端设计特征融合优化策略逐层融合不同尺度的特征增加对细粒度特征的感知,同时以反卷积与双线性插值交替的上采样方式减少图像边缘信息丢失.最后采用交叉熵损失与Dice损失结合的方式加快网络收敛速度.为了验证所提方法的有效性,与几种常用的语义分割方法进行了对比实验.实验结果表明,所提算法的分割准确率为93.7%,MIoU为88.01%,可以实现地物的有效分割.     

A graph-based framework for sub-pixel image segmentation

Many image segmentation methods utilize graph structures for representing images, where the flexibility and generality of the abstract structure is beneficial. By using a fuzzy object representation, i.e., allowing partial belongingness of elements to image objects, the unavoidable loss of information when representing continuous structures by finite sets is significantly reduced, enabling feature estimates with sub-pixel precision.This work presents a framework for object representation based on fuzzy segmented graphs. Interpreting the edges as one-dimensional paths between the vertices of a graph, we extend the notion of a graph cut to that of a located cut, i.e., a cut with sub-edge precision. We describe a method for computing a located cut from a fuzzy segmentation of graph vertices. Further, the notion of vertex coverage segmentation is proposed as a graph theoretic equivalent to pixel coverage segmentations and a method for computing such a segmentation from a located cut is given. Utilizing the proposed framework, we demonstrate improved precision of area measurements of synthetic two-dimensional objects. We emphasize that although the experiments presented here are performed on two-dimensional images, the proposed framework is defined for general graphs and thus applicable to images of any dimension.     

梯度分层重构的彩色图像分水岭分割

目的 现实生活中的彩色图像往往因噪声、色彩不均匀、有较多弱边界等问题的存在导致难以准确分割,结合分水岭变换与形态学重构的优势,提出了一种基于同态滤波与形态学分层重构的分水岭分割算法。方法 首先提取彩色图像的梯度图,接着对该梯度图采用同态滤波修正梯度图。然后利用形态学开闭重构的方法,对滤波后的梯度图进行分层重构。根据梯度图像的累积分布函数及滤波后的梯度像素直方图的分布信息,给出了梯度分层数的计算公式,同时确定了形态学结构元素尺寸。最后对修正后的梯度图像应用标准分水岭变换实现了图像分割。结果 对不同类型的4幅彩色图像进行分割实验,采用区域一致性与差异性相结合的综合指标对分割结果进行无监督评价。这4幅图像的综合评价指标分别为0.6333、0.6656、0.6293、0.6484,均高于文献中两种现有分水岭算法的指标值：0.6295、0.6641、0.6230、0.6454与0.5861、0.5907、0.5704、0.5852,分割性能较好。结论 提出一种新的彩色图像分割算法,应用同态滤波保留了图像的弱边界,采用自适应形态学重构,抑制了分水岭变换中过分割。算法的分割结果更加接近人眼对图像的感知,无论从评价指标还是分割性能看,均表现出色。算法对噪声不敏感,鲁棒性较好,可广泛应用于计算机视觉、交通控制、生物医学等方面的目标分割。