Segmentation of blurred objects by classification of isolabel contours

Segmentation of objects with blurred boundaries is an important and challenging problem, especially in the field of medical image analysis. A new approach to segmentation of homogeneous blurred objects in grayscale images is described in this paper. The proposed algorithm is based on building of an isolabel-contour map of the image and classification of closed isolabel contours by the SVM. Each closed isolabel contour is described by the feature vector that can include intensity-based features of the image area enclosed by the contour, as well as geometrical features of the contour shape. The image labeling procedure for construction of the training base becomes very fast and convenient because it is reduced to clicking on isolabel contours delineating the objects of interest on the isolabel-contour map. The proposed algorithm was applied to the problem of brain lesion segmentation in MRI and demonstrated performance figures above 98% on real data, both in sensitivity and in specificity.     

灰度级信息的目标边界精确周长估算

目的 针对图像目标边界不连续或具有模糊性导致的目标周长无法精确估算这一问题,结合边界跟踪,提出一种基于灰度级信息的目标边界精确周长估算方法。方法 该方法利用目标边界的灰度级信息,同时结合边界跟踪得到的内外边界来估计目标图像的边界周长,从而提高边界周长估计的精确性和鲁棒性。为了获得目标物体真实周长,实验采用人工合成图像。结果 实验应用所提方法和3种传统周长估算方法分别计算合成目标对象的周长,并与真实周长比较。为了验证所提方法的有效性和鲁棒性,实验中对目标对象的边界进行不同程度的加厚模糊化;并在边界加入噪声,使边界不连续。当边界变得复杂时,本文所提方法的优势得到极大体现。结论 实验结果表明,在边界模糊和边界不连续的情况下,本文所提的算法具有更好的适应性和稳定性。     

An active contour model with shape regulation scheme

This paper presents an active method for locating target objects in images, which is aimed at improving the performance of detecting object boundaries by enhancing the behavioral characteristics of an active contour. The proposed active contour model simulates a mechanical system consisting of two main parts: the first is a rigid fixture, called the 'core', specifying the expected shape of target boundaries, while the second is an elastic rod attached to the rigid fixture. The elastic rod deforms or moves relative to the rigid core according to the classical laws of the mechanical system. When the initial contour is applied to an image data, it is attracted near the dominant image features, but tries to keep its home shape and simultaneously make the deformation smooth if a deformation is more natural for force equilibrium. This mechanism significantly improves the performance of detecting object boundaries in the presence of some disturbing image features. The active contour is scale invariant, thereby significantly relieving the difficulty in selecting proper values for the model parameters. The values for the model parameters can be selected to make the contour have the desired behaviors around the equilibrium position through the analysis of the vibration mode of the mechanical system. The performance of the proposed method is validated through a series of experiments, which include detection of heavily degraded objects, tracking of objects under non-rigid motion and comparisons with the original snake models.     

Segmentation of the left ventricle in cardiac cine MRI using a shape-constrained snake model

Segmentation of the left ventricle (LV) is a hot topic in cardiac magnetic resonance (MR) images analysis. In this paper, we present an automatic LV myocardial boundary segmentation method using the parametric active contour model (or snake model). By convolving the gradient map of an image, a fast external force named gradient vector convolution (GVC) is presented for the snake model. A circle-based energy is incorporated into the GVC snake model to extract the endocardium. With this prior constraint, the snake contour can conquer the unexpected local minimum stemming from artifacts and papillary muscle, etc. After the endocardium is detected, the original edge map around and within the endocardium is directly set to zero. This modified edge map is used to generate a new GVC force filed, which automatically pushes the snake contour directly to the epicardium by employing the endocardium result as initialization. Meanwhile, a novel shape-similarity based energy is proposed to prevent the snake contour from being strapped in faulty edges and to preserve weak boundaries. Both qualitative and quantitative evaluations on our dataset and the publicly available database (e.g. MICCAI 2009) demonstrate the good performance of our algorithm.     

An edge-based active contour model using an inflation/deflation force with a damping coefficient

This publication presents an edge-based active contour model using the inflation/deflation force, allowing active contour nodes to be moved to find object boundaries in a digital image. The methods proposed in this study make it possible to keep a high value of the inflation/deflation force for each node until the node approaches the boundary of the analysed shape. After the boundary searched for is reached, the value of the inflation/deflation force for these nodes is automatically damped. The solutions used in this paper are of major practical significance if the analysed images contain weak boundaries and/or strong noise at the same time, and on top of that there are strictures of the shape which should be approximated. Experiments were carried out for artificial images as well as USG and MRI medical images, and have confirmed the suitability of the solutions used.     

A hybrid multi-scale model for thyroid nodule boundary detection on ultrasound images

A hybrid model for thyroid nodule boundary detection on ultrasound images is introduced. The segmentation model combines the advantages of the "á trous" wavelet transform to detect sharp gray-level variations and the efficiency of the Hough transform to discriminate the region of interest within an environment with excessive structural noise. The proposed method comprise three major steps: a wavelet edge detection procedure for speckle reduction and edge map estimation, based on local maxima representation. Subsequently, a multiscale structure model is utilised in order to acquire a contour representation by means of local maxima chaining with similar attributes to form significant structures. Finally, the Hough transform is employed with 'a priori' knowledge related to the nodule's shape in order to distinguish the nodule's contour from adjacent structures. The comparative study between our automatic method and manual delineations demonstrated that the boundaries extracted by the hybrid model are closely correlated with that of the physicians. The proposed hybrid method can be of value to thyroid nodules' shape-based classification and as an educational tool for inexperienced radiologists.     

A hybrid multi-scale model for thyroid nodule boundary detection on ultrasound images

A hybrid model for thyroid nodule boundary detection on ultrasound images is introduced. The segmentation model combines the advantages of the “á trous” wavelet transform to detect sharp gray-level variations and the efficiency of the Hough transform to discriminate the region of interest within an environment with excessive structural noise. The proposed method comprise three major steps: a wavelet edge detection procedure for speckle reduction and edge map estimation, based on local maxima representation. Subsequently, a multiscale structure model is utilised in order to acquire a contour representation by means of local maxima chaining with similar attributes to form significant structures. Finally, the Hough transform is employed with ‘a priori’ knowledge related to the nodule's shape in order to distinguish the nodule's contour from adjacent structures. The comparative study between our automatic method and manual delineations demonstrated that the boundaries extracted by the hybrid model are closely correlated with that of the physicians. The proposed hybrid method can be of value to thyroid nodules’ shape-based classification and as an educational tool for inexperienced radiologists.     

Detection and recognition of contour parts based on shape similarity

Due to distortion, noise, segmentation errors, overlap, and occlusion of objects in digital images, it is usually impossible to extract complete object contours or to segment the whole objects. However, in many cases parts of contours can be correctly reconstructed either by performing edge grouping or as parts of boundaries of segmented regions. Therefore, recognition of objects based on their contour parts seems to be a promising as well as a necessary research direction.The main contribution of this paper is a system for detection and recognition of contour parts in digital images. Both detection and recognition are based on shape similarity of contour parts. For each contour part produced by contour grouping, we use shape similarity to retrieve the most similar contour parts in a database of known contour segments. A shape-based classification of the retrieved contour parts performs then a simultaneous detection and recognition.An important step in our approach is the construction of the database of known contour segments. First complete contours of known objects are decomposed into parts using discrete curve evolution. Then, their representation is constructed that is invariant to scaling, rotation, and translation.     

Using Prior Shapes in Geometric Active Contours in a Variational Framework

In this paper, we report an active contour algorithm that is capable of using prior shapes. The energy functional of the contour is modified so that the energy depends on the image gradient as well as the prior shape. The model provides the segmentation and the transformation that maps the segmented contour to the prior shape. The active contour is able to find boundaries that are similar in shape to the prior, even when the entire boundary is not visible in the image (i.e., when the boundary has gaps). A level set formulation of the active contour is presented. The existence of the solution to the energy minimization is also established.We also report experimental results of the use of this contour on 2d synthetic images, ultrasound images and fMRI images. Classical active contours cannot be used in many of these images.