Dirichlet Gaussian mixture model: Application to image segmentation

Gaussian mixture model based on the Dirichlet distribution (Dirichlet Gaussian mixture model) has recently received great attention for modeling and processing data. This paper studies the new Dirichlet Gaussian mixture model for image segmentation. First, we propose a new way to incorporate the local spatial information between neighboring pixels based on the Dirichlet distribution. The main advantage is its simplicity, ease of implementation and fast computational speed. Secondly, existing Dirichlet Gaussian model uses complex log-likelihood function and require many parameters that are difficult to estimate. The total parameters in the proposed model lesser and the log-likelihood function have a simpler form. Finally, to estimate the parameters of the proposed Dirichlet Gaussian mixture model, a gradient method is adopted to minimize the negative log-likelihood function. Numerical experiments are conducted using the proposed model on various synthetic, natural and color images. We demonstrate through extensive simulations that the proposed model is superior to other algorithms based on the model-based techniques for image segmentation.     

电子印章图像的分割技术

首先介绍了图像分割的几种典型技术,包括基于边缘检测的图像分割、阈值分割和基于颜色分量的图形分割.并通过实验证明了基于颜色分量的图形分割技术能够对电子印章图像进行快速、准确的分割,尽可能减少分割过程中造成的图像信号的衰减,大大提高图像分析的质量,为后续去噪和图像增强提供良好的图像分析.     

Color image segmentation: advances and prospects

Image segmentation is very essential and critical to image processing and pattern recognition. This survey provides a summary of color image segmentation techniques available now. Basically, color segmentation approaches are based on monochrome segmentation approaches operating in different color spaces. Therefore, we first discuss the major segmentation approaches for segmenting monochrome images: histogram thresholding, characteristic feature clustering, edge detection, region-based methods, fuzzy techniques, neural networks, etc.; then review some major color representation methods and their advantages/disadvantages; finally summarize the color image segmentation techniques using different color representations. The usage of color models for image segmentation is also discussed. Some novel approaches such as fuzzy method and physics-based method are investigated as well.     

Category Level Object Segmentation by Combining Bag-of-Words Models with Dirichlet Processes and Random Fields

This paper addresses the problem of accurately segmenting instances of object classes in images without any human interaction. Our model combines a bag-of-words recognition component with spatial regularization based on a random field and a Dirichlet process mixture. Bag-of-words models successfully predict the presence of an object within an image; however, they can not accurately locate object boundaries. Random Fields take into account the spatial layout of images and provide local spatial regularization. Yet, as they use local coupling between image labels, they fail to capture larger scale structures needed for object recognition. These components are combined with a Dirichlet process mixture. It models images as a composition of regions, each representing a single object instance. Gibbs sampling is used for parameter estimations and object segmentation.     

A new approach for color image segmentation based on color mixture

The aim of this paper is to propose a new methodology for color image segmentation. We have developed an image processing technique, based on color mixture, considering how painters do to overlap layers of various hues of paint on creating oil paintings. We also have evaluated the distribution of cones in the human retina for the interpretation of these colors, and we have proposed a schema for the color mixture weight. This method expresses the mixture of black, blue, green, cyan, red, magenta, yellow and white colors quantified by the binary weight of the color that makes up the pixels of an RGB image with 8 bits per channel. The color mixture generates planes that intersect the RGB cube, defining the HSM (Hue, Saturation, Mixture) color space. The position of these planes inside the RGB cube is modeled, based on the distribution of r, g and b cones of the human retina. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed methodology, we present in this paper, the segmentation of “human skin” or “non-skin” pixels in digital color images. The performance of the color mixture was analyzed by a Gaussian distribution in the HSM, HSV and YCbCr color spaces. The method is compared with other skin/non-skin classifiers. The results demonstrate that our approach surpassed the performance of all compared methodologies. The main contributions of this paper are related to a new way for interpreting color of binary images, taking into account the bit-plane levels and the application in image processing techniques.     

Augmented Lagrangian Method for Total Variation Based Image Restoration and Segmentation Over Triangulated Surfaces

Recently total variation (TV) regularization has been proven very successful in image restoration and segmentation. In image restoration, TV based models offer a good edge preservation property. In image segmentation, TV (or vectorial TV) helps to obtain convex formulations of the problems and thus provides global minimizations. Due to these advantages, TV based models have been extended to image restoration and data segmentation on manifolds. However, TV based restoration and segmentation models are difficult to solve, due to the nonlinearity and non-differentiability of the TV term. Inspired by the success of operator splitting and the augmented Lagrangian method (ALM) in 2D planar image processing, we extend the method to TV and vectorial TV based image restoration and segmentation on triangulated surfaces, which are widely used in computer graphics and computer vision. In particular, we will focus on the following problems. First, several Hilbert spaces will be given to describe TV and vectorial TV based variational models in the discrete setting. Second, we present ALM applied to TV and vectorial TV image restoration on mesh surfaces, leading to efficient algorithms for both gray and color image restoration. Third, we discuss ALM for vectorial TV based multi-region image segmentation, which also works for both gray and color images. The proposed method benefits from fast solvers for sparse linear systems and closed form solutions to subproblems. Experiments on both gray and color images demonstrate the efficiency of our algorithms.     

混合空间新型贝叶斯网络模型的图像分割应用研究

现有研究工作没有确定概率向量模型的混合部分比例,所以无法解决MCMC方法的迭代收敛性问题。在具有空间平滑约束的高斯混合模型GMM基础上提出新型贝叶斯网络模型并应用于图像分割领域。模型应用隐Dirichlet分布LDA的概率密度模型和Gauss-Markov随机域MRF的隐Dirichlet参数混合过程来实现参数平滑过程,具有如下优点:针对空间平滑约束规范概率向量模型比例;使用最大后验概率MAP和期望最大化算法EM完成闭合参数的更新操作过程。实验表明,本模型比其他应用GMM方法的图像分割效果好。该模型已成功应用到自然图像和有噪声干扰的自然艺术图像分割过程中。     

Discrete data clustering using finite mixture models

Finite mixture models have been applied for different computer vision, image processing and pattern recognition tasks. The majority of the work done concerning finite mixture models has focused on mixtures for continuous data. However, many applications involve and generate discrete data for which discrete mixtures are better suited. In this paper, we investigate the problem of discrete data modeling using finite mixture models. We propose a novel, well motivated mixture that we call the multinomial generalized Dirichlet mixture. The novel model is compared with other discrete mixtures. We designed experiments involving spatial color image databases modeling and summarization, and text classification to show the robustness, flexibility and merits of our approach.     

Cross entropy based thresholding for magnetic resonance brain images using Crow Search Algorithm

Segmentation is considered the central part of an image processing system due to its high influence on the posterior image analysis. In recent years, the segmentation of magnetic resonance (MR) images has attracted the attention of the scientific community with the objective of assisting the diagnosis in different brain diseases. From several techniques, thresholding represents one of the most popular methods for image segmentation. Currently, an extensive amount of contributions has been proposed in the literature, where thresholding values are obtained by optimizing relevant criteria such as the cross entropy. However, most of such approaches are computationally expensive, since they conduct an exhaustive search strategy for obtaining the optimal thresholding values. This paper presents a general method for image segmentation. To estimate the thresholding values, the proposed approach uses the recently published evolutionary method called the Crow Search Algorithm (CSA) which is based on the behavior in flocks of crows. Different to other optimization techniques used for segmentation proposes, CSA presents a better performance, avoiding critical flaws such as the premature convergence to sub-optimal solutions and the limited exploration-exploitation balance in the search strategy. Although the proposed method can be used as a generic segmentation algorithm, its characteristics allow obtaining excellent results in the automatic segmentation of complex MR images. Under such circumstances, our approach has been evaluated using two sets of benchmark images; the first set is composed of general images commonly used in the image processing literature, while the second set corresponds to MR brain images. Experimental results, statistically validated, demonstrate that the proposed technique obtains better results in terms of quality and consistency.     

Markov random field models for unsupervised segmentation oftextured color images

We present an unsupervised segmentation algorithm which uses Markov random field models for color textures. These models characterize a texture in terms of spatial interaction within each color plane and interaction between different color planes. The models are used by a segmentation algorithm based on agglomerative hierarchical clustering. At the heart of agglomerative clustering is a stepwise optimal merging process that at each iteration maximizes a global performance functional based on the conditional pseudolikelihood of the image. A test for stopping the clustering is applied based on rapid changes in the pseudolikelihood. We provide experimental results that illustrate the advantages of using color texture models and that demonstrate the performance of the segmentation algorithm on color images of natural scenes. Most of the processing during segmentation is local making the algorithm amenable to high performance parallel implementation     

SWGMM: a semi-wrapped Gaussian mixture model for clustering of circular–linear data

Finite mixture models are widely used to perform model-based clustering of multivariate data sets. Most of the existing mixture models work with linear data; whereas, real-life applications may involve multivariate data having both circular and linear characteristics. No existing mixture models can accommodate such correlated circular–linear data. In this paper, we consider designing a mixture model for multivariate data having one circular variable. In order to construct a circular–linear joint distribution with proper inclusion of correlation terms, we use the semi-wrapped Gaussian distribution. Further, we construct a mixture model (termed SWGMM) of such joint distributions. This mixture model is capable of approximating the distribution of multi-modal circular–linear data. An unsupervised learning of the mixture parameters is proposed based on expectation maximization method. Clustering is performed using maximum a posteriori criterion. To evaluate the performance of SWGMM, we choose the task of color image segmentation in LCH space. We present comprehensive results and compare SWGMM with existing methods. Our study reveals that the proposed mixture model outperforms the other methods in most cases.     

彩色图像分割方法综述

由于彩色图像提供了比灰度图像更为丰富的信息，因此彩色图像处理正受到人们越来越多的关注。彩色图像分割是彩色图像处理的重要问题，彩色图像分割可以看成是灰度图像分割技术在各种颜色空间上的应用，为了使该领域的研究人员对当前各种彩色图像分割方法有较全面的了解，因此对各种彩色图像分割方法进行了系统论述，即先对各种颜色空间进行简单介绍，然后对直方图阈值法、特征空间聚类、基于区域的方法、边缘检测、模糊方法、神经元网络、基于物理模型方法等主要的彩色图像分割技术进行综述，并比较了它们的优缺点，通过比较发现模糊技术由于能很好地表达和处理不确定性问题，因此在彩色图像分割领域会有更广阔的应用前景。     

在线高斯混合模型和纹理支持的运动分割

运动分割是基于视频的运动分析中的基本问题．通过颜色和纹理特征的线性组合,实现了一种新的检测运动目标的算法．在线高斯混合模型不仅用于对背景进行更新,而且也用于计算像素颜色差异和颜色权值;纹理特征用于描述局部区域内的结构信息,提高了运动检测算法的鲁棒性．对不同场景的运动分割结果表明,该算法是高效和实用的．     

几种图像阈值分割算法的实现与比较

图像分割是进行图像分析的关键步骤,也是进一步理解图像的基础。该文主要论述了常用的几种图像阈值分割的算法及原理,并以研究沥青混合料的集料特征为背景,从实验角度对图像阈值分割的直方图阈值法、迭代法和大津法进行了分析比较,得出了结论。     

Non-Gaussian Data Clustering via Expectation Propagation Learning of Finite Dirichlet Mixture Models and Applications

Learning appropriate statistical models is a fundamental data analysis task which has been the topic of continuing interest. Recently, finite Dirichlet mixture models have proved to be an effective and flexible model learning technique in several machine learning and data mining applications. In this article, the problem of learning and selecting finite Dirichlet mixture models is addressed using an expectation propagation (EP) inference framework. Within the proposed EP learning method, for finite mixture models, all the involved parameters and the model complexity (i.e. the number of mixture components), can be evaluated simultaneously in a single optimization framework. Extensive simulations using synthetic data along with two challenging real-world applications involving automatic image annotation and human action videos categorization demonstrate that our approach is able to achieve better results than comparable techniques.     

基于子块的区域生长的彩色图像分割算法

提出了一种基于图像子块的区域生长算法,应用于彩色图像分割。首先将图像划分成多个不重叠子块,然后利用从CIE L*a*b*颜色空间中提取出的每个子块的颜色和纹理特征,先进行子块内颜色聚类,达到子块分类的目的,再根据生长准则进行基于分类子块的区域生长,实现对自然彩色图像的分割。实验结果证明了算法的有效性,分割结果符合人的主观感知。     

Skin segmentation using color pixel classification: analysis and comparison

This work presents a study of three important issues of the color pixel classification approach to skin segmentation: color representation, color quantization, and classification algorithm. Our analysis of several representative color spaces using the Bayesian classifier with the histogram technique shows that skin segmentation based on color pixel classification is largely unaffected by the choice of the color space. However, segmentation performance degrades when only chrominance channels are used in classification. Furthermore, we find that color quantization can be as low as 64 bins per channel, although higher histogram sizes give better segmentation performance. The Bayesian classifier with the histogram technique and the multilayer perceptron classifier are found to perform better compared to other tested classifiers, including three piecewise linear classifiers, three unimodal Gaussian classifiers, and a Gaussian mixture classifier.     

A countably infinite mixture model for clustering and feature selection

Mixture modeling is one of the most useful tools in machine learning and data mining applications. An important challenge when applying finite mixture models is the selection of the number of clusters which best describes the data. Recent developments have shown that this problem can be handled by the application of non-parametric Bayesian techniques to mixture modeling. Another important crucial preprocessing step to mixture learning is the selection of the most relevant features. The main approach in this paper, to tackle these problems, consists on storing the knowledge in a generalized Dirichlet mixture model by applying non-parametric Bayesian estimation and inference techniques. Specifically, we extend finite generalized Dirichlet mixture models to the infinite case in which the number of components and relevant features do not need to be known a priori. This extension provides a natural representation of uncertainty regarding the challenging problem of model selection. We propose a Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm to learn the resulted infinite mixture. Through applications involving text and image categorization, we show that infinite mixture models offer a more powerful and robust performance than classic finite mixtures for both clustering and feature selection.     

Skin segmentation based on multi pixel color clustering models

This paper presents a reliable color pixel clustering model for skin segmentation under unconstrained scene conditions. The proposed model can overcome sensitivity to variations in lighting conditions and complex backgrounds. Our approach is based on building multi-skin color clustering models using the Hue, Saturation, and Value color space and multi-level segmentation. Skin regions are extracted using four skin color clustering models, namely, the standard-skin, shadow-skin, light-skin, and high-red-skin models. Moreover, skin color correction (skin lighting) at the shadow-skin layer is used to improve the detection rate. The experimental results from a large image data set demonstrate that the proposed clustering models could achieve a true positive rate of 96.5% and a false positive rate of approximately 0.765%. The experimental results show that the color pixel clustering model is more efficient than other approaches.     

Image Compression and Video Segmentation Using Hierarchical Self-Organization

Both image compression based on color quantization and image segmentation are two typical tasks in the field of image processing. Several techniques based on splitting algorithms or cluster analyses have been proposed in the literature. Self-organizing maps have been also applied to these problems, although with some limitations due to the fixed network architecture and the lack of representation in hierarchical relations among data. In this paper, both problems are addressed using growing hierarchical self-organizing models. An advantage of these models is due to the hierarchical architecture, which is more flexible in the adaptation process to input data, reflecting inherent hierarchical relations among data. Comparative results are provided for image compression and image segmentation. Experimental results show that the proposed approach is promising for image processing, and the powerful of the hierarchical information provided by the proposed model.