A generalized histogram clustering scheme for multidimensional image data

A clustering procedure called HICAP (HIstogram Cluster Analysis Procedure) was developed to perform an unsupervised classification of multidimensional image data. The clustering approach used in HICAP is based upon an algorithm described by Narendra and Goldberg to classify four-dimensional Landsat Multispectral Scanner data. HICAP incorporates two major modifications to the scheme by Narendra and Goldberg. The first modification is that HICAP is generalized to process up to 32-bit data with an arbitrary number of dimensions. The second modification is that HICAP uses more efficient algorithms to implement the clustering approach described by Narendra and Goldberg.(¹) This means that the HICAP classification requires less computation, although it is otherwise identical to the original classification. The computational savings afforded by HICAP increases with the number of dimensions in the data.     

A novel image segmentation algorithm based on neutrosophic similarity clustering

Segmentation is an important research area in image processing, which has been used to extract objects in images. A variety of algorithms have been proposed in this area. However, these methods perform well on the images without noise, and their results on the noisy images are not good. Neutrosophic set (NS) is a general formal framework to study the neutralities’ origin, nature, and scope. It has an inherent ability to handle the indeterminant information. Noise is one kind of indeterminant information on images. Therefore, NS has been successfully applied into image processing algorithms. This paper proposed a novel algorithm based on neutrosophic similarity clustering (NSC) to segment gray level images. We utilize the neutrosophic set in image processing field and define a new similarity function for clustering. At first, an image is represented in the neutrosophic set domain via three membership sets: T, I and F. Then, a neutrosophic similarity function (NSF) is defined and employed in the objective function of the clustering analysis. Finally, the new defined clustering algorithm classifies the pixels on the image into different groups. Experiments have been conducted on a variety of artificial and real images. Several measurements are used to evaluate the proposed method's performance. The experimental results demonstrate that the NSC method segment the images effectively and accurately. It can process both images without noise and noisy images having different levels of noises well. It will be helpful to applications in image processing and computer vision.     

改进的判别割及其在图像分割中的应用

谱聚类算法能在任意形状的样本空间上聚类且收敛于全局最优解,但判别割(Dcut)算法在计算正则化相似度矩阵及其特征向量时比较耗时,而基于子空间的Dcut(SDcut)算法则不稳定,为此,提出基于主成分分析(PCA)的Dcut算法(PCA-Dcut)。PCA-Dcut算法采用PCA算法计算相似度矩阵的前m个大的特征值对应的特征向量构造一个新的矩阵,然后采用构造的矩阵与相似度矩阵和拉普拉斯矩阵分别进行矩阵运算;接着通过计算获得一个m阶正则化相似度矩阵,并计算该矩阵的k个最大特征向量;最后使用构造的矩阵与这k个特征向量相乘获得最终用于分类的特征向量。PCA-Dcut算法能降低Dcut算法的计算复杂度。通过对人工合成数据集、UCI数据集和真实图像的仿真实验表明,PCA-Dcut算法的聚类准确率与Dcut等谱聚类算法相当,同时在分割图像时的运算速度约为Dcut的5.4倍,并具有比SDcut更快的速度和更好的性能。     

基于特征的JPEG图像信息隐藏的隐蔽性评价

在基于图像的信息隐藏研究过程中,人们对信息隐藏性能的评价十分关注。提出了一种基于特征的JPEG图像信息隐藏隐蔽性的评价方法。此方法首先提取信息隐藏前后的JPEG图像的特征,对这些特征处理后进行作差得到特征改变量,然后将得到的多维特征改变量进行主成分分析法综合评价,从而实现对隐藏方法隐蔽性的评价。     

A multiscale regularity measure as a geometric criterion for image segmentation

Recent results from human vision experiments show that lines of low fractal dimension are highly capable of evoking indification with nameable objects. In other words, regular lines are recognized in human vision as object edges. In this paper, a regularity measure of discrete line geometry is presented. This quantitative measure based on a ratio between lines of varying lengths is analyzed in the framework of brownian motion theory. The measure on a given scale is always computed from the maximum precision image, so that no subresolution assumption is introduced. A choice of scale determines the quantity of global information versus local information one wants to measure. We show how this quantitative measure leads to relevant shape information. To illustrate this, an example of an image segmentation application is realized. The segmentation based essentially on geometry criteria, uses a region-growing process. The process depends on a single parameter that can be fixed in a natural way, comparing contour regularity to a geometric model regularity. We present experimental results performed on real-scene images, including indoor and outdoor images.     

On the use of the overlapping area matrix for image segmentation evaluation: A survey and new performance measures

The development of common and reasonable criteria for evaluating and comparing the performance of segmentation algorithms has always been a concern for researchers in the area. As it is discussed in the paper, some of the measures proposed are not adequate for general images (i.e. images of any sort of scene, without any assumption about the features of the scene objects or the illumination distribution) because they assume a certain distribution of pixel gray-level or colour values for the interior of the regions. This paper reviews performance measures not performing such an assumption and proposes a set of new performance measures in the same line, called the percentage of correctly grouped pixels (CG), the percentage of over-segmentation (OS) and the percentage of under-segmentation (US). Apart from accounting for misclassified pixels, the proposed set of new measures are intended to compute the level of fragmentation of reference regions into output regions and vice versa. A comparison involving similar measures is provided at the end of the paper.     

Functional template-based SAR image segmentation

We present an approach to automatic image segmentation, in which user selected sets of examples and counter-examples supply information about the specific segmentation problem. In our approach, image segmentation is guided by a genetic algorithm which learns the appropriate subset and spatial combination of a collection of discriminating functions, associated with image features. The genetic algorithm encodes discriminating functions into a functional template representation, which can be applied to the input image to produce a candidate segmentation. The performance of each candidate segmentation is evaluated within the genetic algorithm, by a comparison to two physics-based techniques for region growing and edge detection. Through the process of segmentation, evaluation, and recombination, the genetic algorithm optimizes functional template design efficiently. Results are presented on real synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery of varying complexity.     

A comparative evaluation of interactive segmentation algorithms

In this paper we present a comparative evaluation of four popular interactive segmentation algorithms. The evaluation was carried out as a series of user-experiments, in which participants were tasked with extracting 100 objects from a common dataset: 25 with each algorithm, constrained within a time limit of 2 min for each object. To facilitate the experiments, a “scribble-driven” segmentation tool was developed to enable interactive image segmentation by simply marking areas of foreground and background with the mouse. As the participants refined and improved their respective segmentations, the corresponding updated segmentation mask was stored along with the elapsed time. We then collected and evaluated each recorded mask against a manually segmented ground truth, thus allowing us to gauge segmentation accuracy over time. Two benchmarks were used for the evaluation: the well-known Jaccard index for measuring object accuracy, and a new fuzzy metric, proposed in this paper, designed for measuring boundary accuracy. Analysis of the experimental results demonstrates the effectiveness of the suggested measures and provides valuable insights into the performance and characteristics of the evaluated algorithms.     

A multiobjective spatial fuzzy clustering algorithm for image segmentation

This article describes a multiobjective spatial fuzzy clustering algorithm for image segmentation. To obtain satisfactory segmentation performance for noisy images, the proposed method introduces the non-local spatial information derived from the image into fitness functions which respectively consider the global fuzzy compactness and fuzzy separation among the clusters. After producing the set of non-dominated solutions, the final clustering solution is chosen by a cluster validity index utilizing the non-local spatial information. Moreover, to automatically evolve the number of clusters in the proposed method, a real-coded variable string length technique is used to encode the cluster centers in the chromosomes. The proposed method is applied to synthetic and real images contaminated by noise and compared with k-means, fuzzy c-means, two fuzzy c-means clustering algorithms with spatial information and a multiobjective variable string length genetic fuzzy clustering algorithm. The experimental results show that the proposed method behaves well in evolving the number of clusters and obtaining satisfactory performance on noisy image segmentation.     

Fuzzy spectral clustering with robust spatial information for image segmentation

In recent years, spectral clustering has become one of the most popular clustering algorithms in areas of pattern analysis and recognition. This algorithm uses the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of a normalized similarity matrix to partition the data, and is simple to implement. However, when the image is corrupted by noise, spectral clustering cannot obtain satisfying segmentation performance. In order to overcome the noise sensitivity of the standard spectral clustering algorithm, a novel fuzzy spectral clustering algorithm with robust spatial information for image segmentation (FSC_RS) is proposed in this paper. Firstly, a non-local-weighted sum image of the original image is generated by utilizing the pixels with a similar configuration of each pixel. Then a robust gray-based fuzzy similarity measure is defined by using the fuzzy membership values among gray values in the new generated image. Thus, the similarity matrix obtained by this measure is only dependent on the number of the gray-levels and can be easily stored. Finally, the spectral graph partitioning method can be applied to this similarity matrix to group the gray values of the new generated image and then the corresponding pixels in the image are reclassified to obtain the final segmentation result. Some segmentation experiments on synthetic and real images show that the proposed method outperforms traditional spectral clustering methods and spatial fuzzy clustering in efficiency and robustness.     

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.     

A multi-scale 3D Otsu thresholding algorithm for medical image segmentation

Thresholding technique is one of the most imperative practices to accomplish image segmentation. In this paper, a novel thresholding algorithm based on 3D Otsu and multi-scale image representation is proposed for medical image segmentation. Considering the high time complexity of 3D Otsu algorithm, an acceleration variant is invented using dimension decomposition rule. In order to reduce the effects of noises and weak edges, multi-scale image representation is brought into the segmentation algorithm. The whole segmentation algorithm is designed as an iteration procedure. In each iteration, the image is segmented by the efficient 3D Otsu, and then it is filtered by a fast local Laplacian filtering to get a smoothed image which will be input into the next iteration. Finally, the segmentation results are pooled to get a final segmentation using majority voting rules. The attractive features of the algorithm are that its segmentation results are stable, it is robust to noises and it holds for both bi-level and multi-level thresholding cases. Experiments on medical MR brain images are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. The experimental results indicate that the proposed algorithm is superior to the other multilevel thresholding algorithms consistently.     

Multispectral image compression using eigenregion-based segmentation

In the study, a novel segmentation technique is proposed for multispectral satellite image compression. A segmentation decision rule composed of the principal eigenvectors of the image correlation matrix is derived to determine the similarity of image characteristics of two image blocks. Based on the decision rule, we develop an eigenregion-based segmentation technique. The proposed segmentation technique can divide the original image into some proper eigenregions according to their local terrain characteristics. To achieve better compression efficiency, each eigenregion image is then compressed by an efficient compression algorithm eigenregion-based eigensubspace transform (ER-EST). The ER-EST contains 1D eigensubspace transform (EST) and 2D-DCT to decorrelate the data in spectral and spatial domains. Before performing EST, the dimension of transformation matrix of EST is estimated by an information criterion. In this way, the eigenregion image may be approximated by a lower-dimensional components in the eigensubspace. Simulation tests performed on SPOT and Landsat TM images have demonstrated that the proposed compression scheme is suitable for multispectral satellite image.     

A method for combining complementary techniques for document image segmentation

Image segmentation is a major task of handwritten document image processing. Many of the proposed techniques for image segmentation are complementary in the sense that each of them using a different approach can solve different difficult problems such as overlapping, touching components, influence of author or font style etc. In this paper, a combination method of different segmentation techniques is presented. Our goal is to exploit the segmentation results of complementary techniques and specific features of the initial image so as to generate improved segmentation results. Experimental results on line segmentation methods for handwritten documents demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed combination method.     

一种基于核主成分特征组合的人脸识别方法

提出了一种基于核主成分特征组合的人脸识别方法。首先利用主成分分析,获得原始输入图像的二阶特征脸图像;然后运用核主成分分析分别抽取原始图像和二阶特征脸图像的核主成分特征,最后将它们组合成一个组合特征向量,进行人脸识别。在ORL人脸库上的实验表明,两种图像的核主成分特征分别有着良好的特点,取得了较好的识别效果,优于核主成分分析和二阶特征脸的结果。     

应用迭代四叉树的肝脏MR图像分割

磁共振（Magnetic Resonance,MR）图像的诊断是公认的确认肝脏有无肿瘤等器质性病变的金标准方法,因此肝脏的正确分割对计算机辅助诊断有非常重要的意义。由于脏器组织浸润和个体差异,在肝脏分割实现方法方面有一定难度,目前尚没有通用的医学分割方法。在既有研究的基础上,提出了基于四叉树的迭代分割算法,得到MR图像中肝脏的自动分割结果。实验分割结果表明这种方法的可行性和优势,并为后续的肿瘤提取奠定基础。     

Semi-supervised statistical region refinement for color image segmentation

Some authors have recently devised adaptations of spectral grouping algorithms to integrate prior knowledge, as constrained eigenvalues problems. In this paper, we improve and adapt a recent statistical region merging approach to this task, as a non-parametric mixture model estimation problem. The approach appears to be attractive both for its theoretical benefits and its experimental results, as slight bias brings dramatic improvements over unbiased approaches on challenging digital pictures.     

结合小波变换和图像主元分析的人脸识别

提出了一种基于小波变换和图像主元分析（IMPCA）相结合的人脸识别方法。小波变换具有保留主要信息,去除噪声的作用,对人脸图像进行小波变换,对变换后的近似图像采用IMPCA方法进行识别。IMPCA是一种快速有效的直接通过图像抽取特征的方法,从图像重构的角度分析了实现IMPCA的两种模式,两种模式分别增强了图像的行特征和列特征,将它们的识别结果进行决策融合可以获得更好的识别效果。基于ORL人脸数据库的实验表明,所提出的方法在识别率上优于单独的IMPCA方法。     

An adaptive spatial information-theoretic fuzzy clustering algorithm for image segmentation

This paper presents an adaptive spatial information-theoretic fuzzy clustering algorithm to improve the robustness of the conventional fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering algorithms for image segmentation. This is achieved through the incorporation of information-theoretic framework into the FCM-type algorithms. By combining these two concepts and modifying the objective function of the FCM algorithm, we are able to solve the problems of sensitivity to noisy data and the lack of spatial information, and improve the image segmentation results. The experimental results have shown that this robust clustering algorithm is useful for MRI brain image segmentation and it yields better segmentation results when compared to the conventional FCM approach.