An improved region-based model with local statistical features for image segmentation

In this paper, we propose a new region-based active contour model (ACM) for image segmentation. In particular, this model utilizes an improved region fitting term to partition the regions of interests in images depending on the local statistics regarding the intensity and the magnitude of gradient in the neighborhood of a contour. By this improved region fitting term, images with noise, intensity non-uniformity, and low-contrast boundaries can be well segmented. Integrated with the duality theory and the anisotropic diffusion process based on structure tensor, a new regularization term is defined through the duality formulation to penalize the length of active contour. By this new regularization term, the structural information of images is utilized to improve the ability of capturing the geometric features such as corners and cusps. From a numerical point of view, we minimize the energy function of our model by an efficient dual algorithm, which avoids the instability and the non-differentiability of traditional numerical solutions, e.g. the gradient descent method. Experiments on medical and natural images demonstrate the advantages of the proposed model over other segmentation models in terms of both efficiency and accuracy.     

An active contour model driven by anisotropic region fitting energy for image segmentation

A novel region active contour model (ACM) for image segmentation is proposed in this paper. In order to perform an accurate segmentation of images with non-homogeneous intensity, the original region fitting energy in the general region-based ACMs is improved by an anisotropic region fitting energy to evolve the contour. Using the local image information described by the structure tensor, this new region fitting energy is defined in terms of two anisotropic fitting functions that approximate the image intensity along the principal directions of variation of the intensity. Therefore, the anisotropic fitting functions extract intensity information more precisely, which enable our model to cope with the boundaries with low-contrast and complicated structures. It is incorporated into a variational formula with a total variation (TV) regularization term with respect to level set function, from which the segmentation process is performed by minimizing this variational energy functional. Experiments on the vessel and brain magnetic resonance images demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method over Chan–Vese (CV) active contours and local binary active contours (LBF) in terms of both efficiency and accuracy.     

基于局部增强与区域拟合的活动轮廓模型

针对活动轮廓模型在分割弱边缘图像及严重的灰度不均匀图像方面存在轮廓曲线不能很好地演化到目标边界等问题,提出了一种基于局部增强与区域拟合的活动轮廓模型。首先,利用局部区域增强方法将原始图像转换为新图像,以增强图像的对比度。其次,利用统计信息计算图像的区域拟合能量。然后,加入正则项以避免演化轮廓重新初始化,提高图像分割效率。最后,通过灰度不均匀的合成图像和真实图像的实验,验证了该算法的有效性。     

基于区域混合活动轮廓模型的医学图像分割

针对变分水平集算法在图像分割过程中计算量较大且收敛速度慢的现象, 在一些基于区域的活动轮廓模型基础上提出了一种新的基于区域混合模型的非凸正则化活动轮廓模型。该模型构造了一个新的能量泛函,该能量泛函结合了考虑图像局部聚类性质的LBF模型和测地线模型,增加了非凸正则化项,加快了轮廓曲线的收敛速度,可以很好地保持区域形状并能防止边缘过平滑,然后通过经典有限差分法求得能量泛函的极小值。最后,在合成图像和医学图像上做了仿真实验,结果表明,该算法具有较快的收敛速度 和很好的鲁棒性,分割结果也较准确。     

基于小波变换的权重自适应图像分割模型

针对灰度不均匀且含噪声图像的分割问题,提出了全局和局部灰度信息的权重参 数自适应水平集分割模型。首先,利用图像的全局和局部灰度信息构造全局能量项和局部能量 项;然后,利用小波变换和小波阈值去噪方法,构造对噪声不敏感的边缘信息刻画矩阵,定义包含 图像边缘信息的自适应权重系数矩阵;最后,利用定义的权重系数矩阵组合全局和局部能量项, 得到分割模型的能量泛函。使用变分法得到了水平集函数演化方程,利用有限差分法实现数值 求解。实验结果表明,该模型兼有 Chan-Vese 模型和 Local Binary Fitting 模型的优点,能够有效 地分割灰度不均匀含噪图像,并对活动轮廓曲线的初始位置和初始形状具有很强的鲁棒性。     

An integrated two-stage approach for image segmentation via active contours

A novel integrated two-stage approach is proposed for image segmentation, where the edge, global and local region information of images are in turn incorporated to define the intensity fitting energy. In the first stage, the Chan-Vese model flexibly assimilates the edge indicator function in the beginning, and then the Laplace operator is introduced to regularize the level set function when minimizing the energy functional. As an edge-based and global region-based active contour, it can be inclined to rapidly produce a coarse segmentation result. In the second stage, we further segment the image by absorbing the local region fitting energy, where its initialization is acquired by the final active contour of the first stage. In addition, we present a generalized level set regularization term, which efficiently eliminates the periodically re-initialization procedure of traditional level set methods and maintains the corresponding signed distance property. Compared with the first stage, the local object details are accurately segmented in the second stage, which can acquire an accurate segmentation result. Qualitative and quantitative experimental results demonstrate the accuracy, robustness and efficiency of our approach with applications to some synthetical and real-world images.

     

An efficient local Chan-Vese model for image segmentation

In this paper, a new local Chan-Vese (LCV) model is proposed for image segmentation, which is built based on the techniques of curve evolution, local statistical function and level set method. The energy functional for the proposed model consists of three terms, i.e., global term, local term and regularization term. By incorporating the local image information into the proposed model, the images with intensity inhomogeneity can be efficiently segmented. In addition, the time-consuming re-initialization step widely adopted in traditional level set methods can be avoided by introducing a new penalizing energy. To avoid the long iteration process for level set evolution, an efficient termination criterion is presented which is based on the length change of evolving curve. Particularly, we proposed constructing an extended structure tensor (EST) by adding the intensity information into the classical structure tensor for texture image segmentation. It can be found that by combining the EST with our LCV model, the texture image can be efficiently segmented no matter whether it presents intensity inhomogeneity or not. Finally, experiments on some synthetic and real images have demonstrated the efficiency and robustness of our model. Moreover, comparisons with the well-known Chan-Vese (CV) model and recent popular local binary fitting (LBF) model also show that our LCV model can segment images with few iteration times and be less sensitive to the location of initial contour and the selection of governing parameters.     

改进K-means活动轮廓模型

目的 通过对C-V模型能量泛函的Euler-Lagrange方程进行变形,建立其与K-means方法的等价关系,提出一种新的基于水平集函数的改进K-means活动轮廓模型。方法 该模型包含局部自适应权重矩阵函数,它根据像素点所在邻域的局部统计信息自适应地确定各个像素点的分割阈值,排除灰度非同质对分割目标的影响,进而实现对灰度非同质图像的精确分割。结果 通过分析对合成以及自然图像的分割结果,与传统及最新经典的活动轮廓模型相比,新模型不仅能较准确地分割灰度非同质图像,而且降低了对初始曲线选取的敏感度。结论 提出了包含权重矩阵函数的新活动轮廓模型,根据分割目的和分割图像性质,制定不同的权重函数,该模型具有广泛的适用性。文中给出的一种具有局部统计特性的权重函数,对灰度非同质图像的效果较好,且对初始曲线位置具有稳定性。     

结合局部特征和全局信息的自适应活动轮廓模型

提出一种新的基于全局图像信息和局部图像特征的活动轮廓分割模型。模型的总能量函数主要包括3项:全局能量项、局部能量项和自适应调节项。其中,全局能量项整合了图像的全局信息,局部能量项则考虑了图像的局部特征,而二者的权重会根据上下文内容自适应调整。由于在模型中充分利用了图像全局信息和局部特征,因而有效地提高了分割的精度。此外,加入了凸优化技术,以获取模型的全局最优解。最后,采用Split-Bregman方法进行快速求解,使得模型的分割效率大大提高。实验结果表明,该模型对初始化具有较好的鲁棒性,在分割精度上有了较大的提升,特别是分割速度比C-V模型快1.5倍到2倍。     

A novel region-based active contour model based on kernel function for image segmentation

It is a difficult task to accurately segment images with intensity inhomogeneity, because most of existing algorithms are based upon the assumption of the homogeneity of image intensity. In this paper, we propose a novel region-based active contour model, referred to as the K-GLIF, which utilizes both global and local image intensity fittings with kernel functions. The model consists of an intensity fitting term and a new regularization term. The intensity fitting term of the level set function is the gradient descent flow that minimizes the global binary fitting energy functional. The local intensity fitting value based on the generalized Gaussian kernel function is then incorporated into the global intensity fitting value to form the weighted intensity fitting value on the two sides of the contour. Owing to the kernel function, the intensity information in local regions is extracted to guide the motion of the contour, which enables the model to effectively segment images with intensity inhomogeneity and smooth noise. A new regularization term is used to control the smoothness of the level set function and avoid complicated re-initialization. Experimental results and comparisons with other models of inhomogeneous images, synthetic images, medical images, multi-object images, natural and infrared images show that the proposed K-GLIF model improves the quality of image segmentation in terms of accuracy and robustness of initial contours.

     

局部熵驱动的模糊区域竞争图像分割

针对现有图像分割模型对光照敏感,提出一种新的基于区域的主动轮廓线模型。该模型能量泛函包含一个惩罚区域弧长的几何正则项和一个区域数据拟合项,特别的是数据拟合项采用局部熵来区分不同的区域。首先,根据图像像素空间排列之间的相关性,采用一个滑动窗函数提取图像局部熵特征,将图像从灰度空间转化到相应局部熵特征空间;然后,在局部熵空间计算最大后验分割概率得出两相区域竞争模型,为了能够快速求解该模型,采用隶属度函数替换特征函数得到了凸的模糊区域竞争模型。最后,采用快速的Chambolle对偶方法得到全局最小解。实验结果表明,该算法可以得到令人满意的分割效果且收敛速度快和对光照稳定。     

融合区域和边缘特征的水平集水下图像分割

目的 水平集模型是图像分割中的一种先进方法,在陆地环境图像分割中展现出较好效果。特征融合策略被广泛引入到该模型框架,以拉伸目标-背景对比度,进而提高对高噪声、杂乱纹理等多类复杂图像的处理性能。然而,在水下环境中,由于水体高散射、强衰减等多因素的共同作用,使得现有图像特征及水平集模型难以适用于对水下图像的分割任务,分割结果与目标形态间存在较大差异。鉴于此,提出一种适用于水下图像分割的区域-边缘水平集模型,以提高水下图像目标分割的准确性。方法 综合应用图像的区域特征及边缘特征对水下目标进行辨识。对于区域特征,引入水下图像显著性特征;对于边缘特征,创新性地提出了一种基于深度信息的边缘特征提取方法。所提方法在融合区域级和边缘级特征的基础上,引入距离正则项对水平集函数进行规范,以增强水平集函数演化的稳定性。结果 基于YouTube和Bubblevision的水下数据集的实验结果表明,所提方法不仅对高散射强衰减的低对比度水下图像实现较好的分割效果,同时对处理强背景噪声图像也有较好的鲁棒性,与水平集分割方法（local pre-fitting,LPF）相比,分割精确度至少提高11.5%,与显著性检测方法（hierarchical co-salient detection via color names,HCN）相比,精确度提高6.7%左右。结论 实验表明区域-边缘特征融合以及其基础上的水平集模型能够较好地克服水下图像分割中的部分难点,所提方法能够较好分割水下目标区域并拟合目标轮廓,与现有方法对比获得了较好的分割结果。     

基于边缘熵和局部FT分布的超声图像分割模型

由于采用高斯和瑞利分布描述超声图像均存在较大偏差,且分割过程缺乏超声图像边缘信息引导,致使其相应的局部高斯分布拟合(LGDF)模型和局部瑞利分布拟合(LRDF)模型对超声图像分割性能不理想.针对上述问题,提出了一种边缘熵加权的局部Fisher-Tippett(FT)分布拟合模型.该模型根据超声图像中目标和背景在局部区域...     

自适应正则化活动轮廓模型

针对Chan-Vese模型含有许多参数,分割时需要人为调整参数,耗费大量的人力和时间的问题,提出了一个自适应正则化活动轮廓模型。首先,对Chan-Vese模型的数据项进行简化;其次,使用改进的边界加权H¹正则化代替长度项;最后,形成了一个新的不含任何参数的活动轮廓模型。在分割实验中,该模型对初始轮廓的大小、位置不敏感,具有较强的抗噪性,分割6幅图像的平均时间和迭代次数分别为1.5834 s、19次。实验结果表明,所提模型无需人工调整参数,能够分割强噪声图像和灰度不均图像,并且具有较快的分割速度。     

Fisher准则和正则化水平集方法分割噪声图像

随着活动轮廓模型的不断成熟和发展,模型的抗噪能力又成为重要的研究课题.为了精确地分割图像的同时去除图像的噪声,针对噪声图像用非负稳健函数作为边缘保持函数,从而保证图像在去噪的过程中边缘和纹理信息不被模糊.首先创造性地将分类器中的Fisher准则函数引入到图像分割中,从分类的角度对C-V模型给出了Fisher解释.把Fisher准则作为分割的标准来建立一个基于区域和边缘相结合的同时完成去噪和分割变分水平集分割模型.其次详细讨论了该模型的数值求解方法.最后实验验证了用Fisher值来衡量分割标准的理论的正确性和可靠性以及模型中正则项约束在去噪过程中的边缘保持功能.通过3组实验检验了提出的模型对噪声图像的去噪和分割比聚类算法、松弛迭代算法、Mean Shift算法有更好的效果.     

引入分数阶微分的局部高斯分布拟合能量模型

局部高斯分布拟合能量(LGDF)模型缺乏全局信息,对初始轮廓曲线选取较敏感,特别在分割弱边缘和弱纹理区域图像时,容易陷入局部极值,对噪声的鲁棒性不好.针对上述问题,文中提出引入分数阶微分的LGDF模型.在LGDF模型中引入全局的Grümwald-Letnikov(G-L)分数阶梯度拟合项,增强弱边缘和弱纹理区域的梯度信息,提高对初始轮廓曲线和噪声的鲁棒性.采用自适应权重函数确定全局项和局部项的系数,提高对灰度不均匀图像的分割效率和分割精度.根据图像的梯度模值、信息熵和对比度构建自适应分数阶阶次的函数,提高分割效率.理论分析和实验均表明,文中模型可以用于灰度不均匀、弱纹理、弱边缘图像的分割.合成图像和真实图像的实验表明文中模型可以提高图像的分割精度和效率.     

一种改进的变分水平集的图像分割算法

为了解决灰度不均匀现象对医学图像的干扰问题,提出了基于局部极性信息的活 动轮廓模型。通过引入局部图像信息,该模型能有效地分割灰度不均匀图像。在规则化项中增 加的能量惩罚项,使得水平集函数在演化过程中保持为近似的符号距离函数。该算法将图像分 割问题归结为曲线能量泛函的最小化,首先建立包含局部灰度信息（极性信息）和改进的符号 距离函数的曲线演化能量泛函;然后采用变分水平集方法求解能量函数的最小值,得到最终的 分割结果。真实医学图像和人工合成图像的实验结果表明,此方法对灰度不均匀的医学图像有 较高的分割精确度,在图像分割速度上有较大提高。由于利用了局部灰度信息,可以有效地分 割灰度不均匀的医学图像,而改进后的变分水平集可以完全避免重新初始化,使得图像分割效 率大大提高了。     

Moment-based alignment for shape prior with variational B-spline level set

This paper presents a new shape prior-based implicit active contour model for image segmentation. The paper proposes an energy functional including a data term and a shape prior term. The data term, inspired from the region-based active contour approach, evolves the contour based on the region information of the image to segment. The shape prior term, defined as the distance between the evolving shape and a reference shape, constraints the evolution of the contour with respect to the reference shape. Especially, in this paper, we present shapes via geometric moments, and utilize the shape normalization procedure, which takes into account the affine transformation, to align the evolving shape with the reference one. By this way, we could directly calculate the shape transformation, instead of solving a set of coupled partial differential equations as in the gradient descent approach. In addition, we represent the level-set function in the proposed energy functional as a linear combination of continuous basic functions expressed on a B-spline basic. This allows a fast convergence to the segmentation solution. Experiment results on synthetic, real, and medical images show that the proposed model is able to extract object boundaries even in the presence of clutter and occlusion.     

Nonlocal variational image segmentation models on graphs using the Split Bregman

Variational functionals such as Mumford-Shah and Chan-Vese methods have a major impact on various areas of image processing. After over 10 years of investigation, they are still in widespread use today. These formulations optimize contours by evolution through gradient descent, which is known for its overdependence on initialization and the tendency to produce undesirable local minima. In this paper, we propose an image segmentation model in a variational nonlocal means framework based on a weighted graph. The advantages of this model are twofold. First, the convexity global minimum (optimum) information is taken into account to achieve better segmentation results. Second, the proposed global convex energy functionals combine nonlocal regularization and local intensity fitting terms. The nonlocal total variational regularization term based on the graph is able to preserve the detailed structure of target objects. At the same time, the modified local binary fitting term introduced in the model as the local fitting term can efficiently deal with intensity inhomogeneity in images. Finally, we apply the Split Bregman method to minimize the proposed energy functional efficiently. The proposed model has been applied to segmentation of real medical and remote sensing images. Compared with other methods, the proposed model is superior in terms of both accuracy and efficient.     

Adaptive active contour model driven by image data field for image segmentation with flexible initialization

In this paper, a novel adaptive active contour model based on image data field for image segmentation with robust and flexible initializations is proposed. We firstly construct a new external energy term deduced from the image data field that drives the level set function to move in the opposite direction along the boundaries of object and an adaptive length regularization term based on the image local entropy. The designed external energy and length regularization term are then incorporated into a variationlevel set framework with an additional penalizing energy term. Due to the adaptive sign–changing property of the external energy and the adaptive length regularization term, the proposed model can tackle images with clutter background and noise, the level set function can be initialized as any bounded functions (e.g., constant function), which implies the proposed model is robust to initialization of contours. Experimental results on both synthetic and real images from different modalities confirm the effectiveness and competivive performance of the proposed method compared with other representative models.