Integrated active contours for texture segmentation.

We address the issue of textured image segmentation in the context of the Gabor feature space of images. Gabor filters tuned to a set of orientations, scales and frequencies are applied to the images to create the Gabor feature space. A two-dimensional Riemannian manifold of local features is extracted via the Beltrami framework. The metric of this surface provides a good indicator of texture changes and is used, therefore, in a Beltrami-based diffusion mechanism and in a geodesic active contours algorithm for texture segmentation. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared with that of the edgeless active contours algorithm applied for texture segmentation. Moreover, an integrated approach, extending the geodesic and edgeless active contours approaches to texture segmentation, is presented. We show that combining boundary and region information yields more robust and accurate texture segmentation results.     

An unsupervised texture segmentation algorithm with feature spacereduction and knowledge feedback

This paper presents an unsupervised texture segmentation algorithm based on feature extraction using multichannel Gabor filtering. It is shown that feature contrast, a criterion derived for Gabor filter parameter selection, is well suited for feature coordinate weighting in order to reduce the feature space dimension. The central idea of the proposed segmentation algorithm is to decompose the actual segmented image into disjunct areas called scrap images and use them after lowpass filtering as additional features for repeated k-means clustering and minimum distance classification. This yields a classification of texture regions with an improved degree of homogeneity while preserving precise texture boundaries.     

Image Segmentation Based on GrabCut Framework Integrating Multiscale Nonlinear Structure Tensor

In this paper, we propose an interactive color natural image segmentation method. The method integrates color feature with multiscale nonlinear structure tensor texture (MSNST) feature and then uses GrabCut method to obtain the segmentations. The MSNST feature is used to describe the texture feature of an image and integrated into GrabCut framework to overcome the problem of the scale difference of textured images. In addition, we extend the Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) to MSNST feature and GMM based on MSNST is constructed to describe the energy function so that the texture feature can be suitably integrated into GrabCut framework and fused with the color feature to achieve the more superior image segmentation performance than the original GrabCut method. For easier implementation and more efficient computation, the symmetric KL divergence is chosen to produce the estimates of the tensor statistics instead of the Riemannian structure of the space of tensor. The Conjugate norm was employed using Locality Preserving Projections (LPP) technique as the distance measure in the color space for more discriminating power. An adaptive fusing strategy is presented to effectively adjust the mixing factor so that the color and MSNST texture features are efficiently integrated to achieve more robust segmentation performance. Last, an iteration convergence criterion is proposed to reduce the time of the iteration of GrabCut algorithm dramatically with satisfied segmentation accuracy. Experiments using synthesis texture images and real natural scene images demonstrate the superior performance of our proposed method.     

Segmentation of Gabor-filtered textures using deterministicrelaxation

A supervised texture segmentation scheme is proposed in this article. The texture features are extracted by filtering the given image using a filter bank consisting of a number of Gabor filters with different frequencies, resolutions, and orientations. The segmentation model consists of feature formation, partition, and competition processes. In the feature formation process, the texture features from the Gabor filter bank are modeled as a Gaussian distribution. The image partition is represented as a noncausal Markov random field (MRF) by means of the partition process. The competition process constrains the overall system to have a single label for each pixel. Using these three random processes, the a posteriori probability of each pixel label is expressed as a Gibbs distribution. The corresponding Gibbs energy function is implemented as a set of constraints on each pixel by using a neural network model based on Hopfield network. A deterministic relaxation strategy is used to evolve the minimum energy state of the network, corresponding to a maximum a posteriori (MAP) probability. This results in an optimal segmentation of the textured image. The performance of the scheme is demonstrated on a variety of images including images from remote sensing.     

Comparison of texture features based on Gabor filters

Texture features that are based on the local power spectrum obtained by a bank of Gabor filters are compared. The features differ in the type of nonlinear post-processing which is applied to the local power spectrum. The following features are considered: Gabor energy, complex moments, and grating cell operator features. The capability of the corresponding operators to produce distinct feature vector clusters for different textures is compared using two methods: the Fisher (1923) criterion and the classification result comparison. Both methods give consistent results. The grating cell operator gives the best discrimination and segmentation results. The texture detection capabilities of the operators and their robustness to nontexture features are also compared. The grating cell operator is the only one that selectively responds only to texture and does not give false response to nontexture features such as object contours.     

Wavelet-based rotational invariant roughness features for texture classification and segmentation

We introduce a rotational invariant feature set for texture segmentation and classification, based on an extension of fractal dimension (FD) features. The FD extracts roughness information from images considering all available scales at once. In this work, a single scale is considered at a time so that textures with scale-dependent properties are satisfactorily characterized. Single-scale features are combined with multiple-scale features for a more complete textural representation. Wavelets are employed for the computation of single- and multiple-scale roughness features because of their ability to extract information at different resolutions. Features are extracted in multiple directions using directional wavelets, and the feature vector is finally transformed to a rotational invariant feature vector that retains the texture directional information. An iterative K-means scheme is used for segmentation, and a simplified form of a Bayesian classifier is used for classification. The use of the roughness feature set results in high-quality segmentation performance. Furthermore, it is shown that the roughness feature set exhibits a higher classification rate than other feature vectors presented in this work. The feature set retains the important properties of FD-based features, namely insensitivity to absolute illumination and contrast.     

Towards multi-stage texture-based active contour image segmentation

In this paper, we present a three-stage approach to incorporation of texture analysis into a two-dimensional active contour segmentation framework. This approach allows to utilise texture information alongside other image features. The proposed method starts with an initial unsupervised feature computation and selection, then moves to a fast contour evolution process and ends with a final refinement stage. The algorithm is designed to be general in its nature and not restricted to any particular texture feature extraction method. In this paper, the initial stage generates a set of feature maps consisting of grey-level co-occurrence matrix and Gabor features. The implementation makes an extensive use of hardware acceleration for efficient calculation of a relatively large number of features. The performance of the method was tested on various synthetic and natural images and compared with results of other algorithms.     

Generalized flooding and Multicue PDE-based image segmentation.

Image segmentation remains an important, but hard-to-solve, problem since it appears to be application dependent with usually no a priori information available regarding the image structure. Moreover, the increasing demands of image analysis tasks in terms of segmentation results' quality introduce the necessity of employing multiple cues for improving image segmentation results. In this paper, we attempt to incorporate cues such as intensity contrast, region size, and texture in the segmentation procedure and derive improved results compared to using individual cues separately. We emphasize on the overall segmentation procedure, and we propose efficient simplification operators and feature extraction schemes, capable of quantifying important characteristics, like geometrical complexity, rate of change in local contrast variations, and orientation, that eventually favor the final segmentation result. Based on the well-known morphological paradigm of watershed transform segmentation, which exploits intensity contrast and region size criteria, we investigate its partial differential equation (PDE) formulation, and we extend it in order to satisfy various flooding criteria, thus making it applicable to a wider range of images. Going a step further, we introduce a segmentation scheme that couples contrast criteria in flooding with texture information. The modeling of the proposed scheme is done via PDEs and the efficient incorporation of the available contrast and texture information, is done by selecting an appropriate cartoon-texture image decomposition scheme. The proposed coupled segmentation scheme is driven by two separate image components: cartoon U (for contrast information) and texture component V. The performance of the proposed segmentation scheme is demonstrated through a complete set of experimental results and substantiated using quantitative and qualitative criteria.     

基于Gabor小波与HOG特征的目标检测方法

针对传统的HOG目标识别方法,提出一种通过Gabor滤波融合后的进行HOG特征提取的目标检测方法。为了提高HOG特征提取信息的有效性,首先用Gabor对目标图像做了预处理,其预处理过程是针对图像Gabor特征的在尺度和方向上进行融合,形成一幅Gabor图像。为了有效提取全局的Gabor图像纹理、轮廓信息,将该图像分为大小相同且重叠的块,分别对每个块进行统计,最后用RealAdaboost级联方法对目标和非目标样本进行学习,并对测试序列进行分类。结果表明,基于梯度的Gabor预处理技术能提高目标特征提取性能。与传统的HOG目标识别的方法比较,该方法在目标图像受到干扰的情况(遮挡、重叠等)下,监测效果明显优越。     

多尺度超像素纹理特征保持与融合的高光谱图像分类

高光谱图像的低空间分辨率特性往往导致全局纹理提取技术难以获取地物要素的精准纹理信息,同时,单一尺度的局部纹理提取技术难以达到有效识别地物的目的。基于此,该文设计了一种多尺度超像素纹理保持与融合(MSuTPF)的高光谱图像分类方法,主要架构如下:首先,利用2D Gabor滤波器对高光谱图像进行多方向与尺度的全局纹理提取,并通过融合各尺度的纹理特征,增强纹理结构表征能力;其次,融合纹理与光谱主成分特征以形成光谱-纹理联合判别特征;再次,采用形状自适应的超分割方法,作用至光谱-纹理联合特征进行局部纹理信息保持与融合,尤其是,为克服超像素邻域像元的隐性不相关问题,该文定义了基于密度最近邻相似性评价准则,使超像素纹理进一步趋于一致性;最后,将各更新的光谱-纹理联合特征输入像素级分类器获取其对应的类标签,并采用多数表决的决策融合机制取得最终分类结果。Indian Pines和Pavia University真实数据集的实验表明,该方法在小样本条件下的分类精度优于基准分类器(SVM)、深度学习方法(GFDN)以及最新的空-谱分类方法(S3-PCA)等8个对比方法,充分证明了该文所提方法的实用性和有效性。     

Localized texture processing in vision: analysis and synthesis inthe Gaborian space

Recent studies of cortical simple cell function suggest that the primitives of image representation in vision have a wavelet form similar to Gabor elementary functions (EF's). It is shown that textures and fully-textured images can be practically decomposed into, and synthesized from, a finite set of EF's. Textured-images can be synthesized from a set of EF's using image coefficient library. Alternatively, texturing of contoured (cartoon-like) images is analogous to adding chromaticity information to contoured images. A method for texture discrimination and image segmentation using local features based on the Gabor approach is introduced. Features related to the EF's parameters provide efficient means for texture discrimination and classification. This method is invariant under rotation and translation. The performance of the classification appears to be robust with respect to noisy conditions. The results show an insensitivity of the discrimination to relatively high noise levels, comparable to the performances of the human observer.     

基于信息熵和Gabor滤波器的图像检索

采用颜色和纹理的多特征提取,将图像按照一定的规则进行分块,对各个分块分别进行各种特征向量的提取.采用HSV颜色空间把颜色特征量化到72个颜色空间得到72柄的一维直方图,计算图像信息熵;纹理特征采用Gabor滤波器.该种分块方法能够很好的利用图像内容的空间信息,综合颜色和纹理特征能够有效地提高查全率和差准率.     

Prostate cancer spectral multifeature analysis using TRUS images

This paper focuses on extracting and analyzing different spectral features from transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images for prostate cancer recognition. First, the information about the images' frequency domain features and spatial domain features are combined using a Gabor filter and then integrated with the expert radiologist's information to identify the highly suspicious regions of interest (ROIs). The next stage of the proposed algorithm is to scan each identified region in order to generate the corresponding 1-D signal that represents each region. For each ROI, possible spectral feature sets are constructed using different new geometrical features extracted from the power spectrum density (PSD) of each region's signal. Next, a classifier-based algorithm for feature selection using particle swarm optimization (PSO) is adopted and used to select the optimal feature subset from the constructed feature sets. A new spectral feature set for the TRUS images using estimation of signal parameters via rotational invariance technique (ESPRIT) is also constructed, and its ability to represent tissue texture is compared to the PSD-based spectral feature sets using the support vector machines (SVMs) classifier. The accuracy obtained ranges from 72.2% to 94.4%, with the best accuracy achieved by the ESPRIT feature set.     

一种改进的基于Gabor滤波器的纹理分割方法

本文深入分析了Gabor滤波器的性能及其实现纹理分割的原理，针对现有的基于Gabor滤波器纹理分割方法存在的不足，提出一种根据“频谱特征值向量”构造Gabor滤波器组，以实现纹理分割的改进方法。实验结果表明，本文所提改进方法的分割效果明显优于现有方法，充分证实该方法行之有效。     

基于改进蜂群优化的图像分割算法

针对图像分割算法各个性能不均衡的问题,提出一种基于蜂群优化与多颜色空间特征提取的图像分割算法.首先,对CIE颜色空间的L分量使用Gabor滤波器提取图像的纹理特征,并且在图像的HSV颜色空间计算图像的局部一致性,共提取图像的7个特征,组成特征向量;然后,本文对蜂群搜索算法进行优化,设计了一个有效的局部搜索算法,使得蜂群可高效地收敛至较优的帕累托最优解;最终,使用改进的蜂群算法对种子区域生长法进行改进与优化,指定种子的最优位置,决定每个种子点一致性准则的最优阈值,并将多准则作为多目标优化的问题,使用蜂群优化搜索帕累托最优解,最终获得分割结果.对比实验结果表明,该分割算法的时间效率、一致性误差以及类内散布度等性能较为均衡,具有较好的实用价值.     

Unsupervised texture segmentation of images using tuned matchedGabor filters

Recent studies have confirmed that the multichannel Gabor decomposition represents an excellent tool for image segmentation and boundary detection. Unfortunately, this approach when used for unsupervised image analysis tasks imposes excessive storage requirements due to the nonorthogonality of the basis functions and is computationally highly demanding. In this correspondence, we propose a novel method for efficient image analysis that uses tuned matched Gabor filters. The algorithmic determination of the parameters of the Gabor filters is based on the analysis of spectral feature contrasts obtained from iterative computation of pyramidal Gabor transforms with progressive dyadic decrease of elementary cell sizes. The method requires no a priori knowledge of the analyzed image so that the analysis is unsupervised. Computer simulations applied to different classes of textures illustrate the matching property of the tuned Gabor filters derived using our determination algorithm. Also, their capability to extract significant image information and thus enable an easy and efficient low-level image analysis will be demonstrated.     

Active appearance models using statistical characteristics of Gabor based texture representation

Active appearance model (AAM) has been successfully applied to register many types of deformable objects in images. However, the high dimension of intensity used in AAM usually leads to an expensive storage and computational cost. Moreover, intensity values cannot provide enough information for image alignment. In this paper, we propose a new AAM method based on Gabor texture feature representation. Our contributions are two-fold. On one hand, based on the assumption that Gabor magnitude and Gabor phase follow a lognormal distribution and a general Gaussian distribution respectively, three simplified texture representations are proposed. One the other hand, we apply the proposed texture representations in AAM, which is the first time to extract statistical features from both Gabor magnitude and Gabor phase as the texture representation in AAM. Tests on public and our databases show that the proposed Gabor representations lead to more accurate and robust matching between model and images.