Fuzzy color histogram-based video segmentation

We present a fuzzy color histogram-based shot-boundary detection algorithm specialized for content-based copy detection applications. The proposed method aims to detect both cuts and gradual transitions (fade, dissolve) effectively in videos where heavy transformations (such as cam-cording, insertions of patterns, strong re-encoding) occur. Along with the color histogram generated with the fuzzy linking method on L*a*b* color space, the system extracts a mask for still regions and the window of picture-in-picture transformation for each detected shot, which will be useful in a content-based copy detection system. Experimental results show that our method effectively detects shot boundaries and reduces false alarms as compared to the state-of-the-art shot-boundary detection algorithms.     

SAR image segmentation with parallel region merging

Multimedia Tools and Applications - In this paper, a parallel region merging strategy is proposed for partitioning Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images into several disjoint regions, based on the...     

Interactive image segmentation by maximal similarity based region merging

Efficient and effective image segmentation is an important task in computer vision and object recognition. Since fully automatic image segmentation is usually very hard for natural images, interactive schemes with a few simple user inputs are good solutions. This paper presents a new region merging based interactive image segmentation method. The users only need to roughly indicate the location and region of the object and background by using strokes, which are called markers. A novel maximal-similarity based region merging mechanism is proposed to guide the merging process with the help of markers. A region R is merged with its adjacent region Q if Q has the highest similarity with Q among all Q's adjacent regions. The proposed method automatically merges the regions that are initially segmented by mean shift segmentation, and then effectively extracts the object contour by labeling all the non-marker regions as either background or object. The region merging process is adaptive to the image content and it does not need to set the similarity threshold in advance. Extensive experiments are performed and the results show that the proposed scheme can reliably extract the object contour from the complex background.     

一种基于区域分级合并的彩色图像分割方法

在区域合并过程中,手工设置颜色相似性和边界距离的权重极大地影响了分割的精度和自动化.针对这一问题,提出了一种新的基于区域分级合并的彩色图像分割算法.该方法能够根据邻接区域的边界特点设置权重因子,从而自适应地融合区域的颜色相似性和边界距离.使用均值漂移算法对图像进行初始分割,将原图像分割为具有较好边界的同质区域;通过计算区域相似度对区域进行分级合并.多幅彩色图像的分割实验结果证明,所提算法优于传统的基于区域合并的方法.     

融合均值漂移和区域合并的彩色图像分割方法

彩色图像分割是从图像处理到分析的关键步骤之一。结合了均值漂移和区域合并算法,在HSV空间,提出一种融合颜色和空间信息的彩色图像分割方法。该算法先由改进的均值漂移（Mean shift）算法求取各局部极值（聚类中心）,并利用全局信息,改进了现有的带宽求取和权重设置自适应法则;针对均值漂移带来的纹理和光影的过分割,使用改进的fisher距离进行区域合并,取散度作为停止度量。实验证明,此算法是有效的。     

Color image segmentation based on homogram thresholding and region merging

In this paper, a color image segmentation approach based on homogram thresholding and region merging is presented. The homogram considers both the occurrence of the gray levels and the neighboring homogeneity value among pixels. Therefore, it employs both the local and global information. Fuzzy entropy is utilized as a tool to perform homogram analysis for finding all major homogeneous regions at the first stage. Then region merging process is carried out based on color similarity among these regions to avoid oversegmentation. The proposed homogram-based approach (HOB) is compared with the histogram-based approach (HIB). The experimental results demonstrate that the HOB can find homogeneous regions more effectively than HIB does, and can solve the problem of discriminating shading in color images to some extent.     

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.     

基于数学形态学和区域合并的医学CT图像分割*

针对传统分水岭算法分割腹部CT图像存在的过分割情况,提出了一种基于形态学优化和区域合并的分水岭分割算法。该方法先利用多尺度数学形态学方法检测出梯度图像,并用形态学重构去除细密纹理和噪声引起的局部极值,然后进行分水岭变换。为了产生有意义的分割,采用简单的区域灰度均值对变换后的图像进行有效的合并。实验结果表明,该方法能有效解决分水岭算法的过分割问题,得到较好的分割效果。     

基于K均值聚类与区域合并的彩色图像分割算法

提出一种基于K均值聚类与区域合并的彩色图像分割算法。首先,对图像运用mean shift算法进行滤波,在对图像进行平滑的同时保持图像的边缘;然后,运用K均值算法对图像在颜色空间进行聚类,得到初始分割的结果;最后,给出了一种区域合并策略,对初始分割获得的区域进行合并,得到最终的分割结果。仿真结果表明,算法的分割结果和人的主观视觉感知具有良好的一致性。     

Image segmentation via multi dimensional color transform and consensus based region merging

Multimedia Tools and Applications - Most natural scene real world images contain a lot of variations and produce a set of complex information. This complex information representation inducts...     

A ‘no-threshold’ histogram-based image segmentation method

Although most histogram-based image segmentation methods rely on the identification of a good threshold, we show that thresholding is not mandatory. Instead, we propose the association of grades of membership to each individual pixel, in order to perform probabilistic relaxation in the image space (which realizes some kind of regularization) and finally to obtain the segmented image through defuzzyfication of the relaxed grades of membership.     

基于均匀性图分水岭变换及两步区域合并的彩色图像分割

提出了一种基于分水岭的彩色图像分割算法。首先采用同类组滤波技术对彩色图像进行保边缘的平滑,结合梯度图和二阶矩图提取一种反映了图像更精细局部信息的均匀性图,然后利用经典分水岭算法进行初始分割,分别就区域面积和Fisher距离分两步进行区域合并,结合信息损失和区域数目关系导出的颜色散度增量作为自动终止合并的策略。实验结果表明了该算法的有效性。     

Automatic tongue image segmentation based on gradient vector flow and region merging

This paper presents a region merging-based automatic tongue segmentation method. First, gradient vector flow is modified as a scalar diffusion equation to diffuse the tongue image while preserving the edge structures of tongue body. Then the diffused tongue image is segmented into many small regions by using the watershed algorithm. Third, the maximal similarity-based region merging is used to extract the tongue body area under the control of tongue marker. Finally, the snake algorithm is used to refine the region merging result by setting the extracted tongue contour as the initial curve. The proposed method is qualitatively tested on 200 images by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and quantitatively tested on 50 tongue images using the receiver operating characteristic analysis. Compared with the previous active contour model-based bi-elliptical deformable contour algorithm, the proposed method greatly enhances the segmentation performance, and it could reliably extract the tongue body from different types of tongue images.     

基于色调直方图和区域合并的彩色图像分割算法

近年来随着机器视觉、模式识别和基于内容的图像检索等技术的不断提高以及彩色图像的大量使用,图像分割特别是彩色图像的分割显示出越来越重要的地位。为此提出了一种快速有效的彩色图像分割方法,主要包括三个步骤：首先将RGB颜色空间转换成HSV空间,把图像中的像素点根据饱和度和亮度划分为奇异点和非奇异点;然后对非奇异点和奇异点分别采用基于色调和灰度直方图进行分割;最后综合这两种分割结果,采用区域合并技术进行合并。实验结果表明,该方法对彩色图像能够有效地提取目标物体,具有一定的鲁棒性。     

Spatio-temporal segmentation based on region merging

This paper proposes a technique for spatio-temporal segmentation to identify the objects present in the scene represented in a video sequence. This technique processes two consecutive frames at a time. A region-merging approach is used to identify the objects in the scene. Starting from an oversegmentation of the current frame, the objects are formed by iteratively merging regions together. Regions are merged based on their mutual spatio-temporal similarity. We propose a modified Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for estimating the temporal similarity. The region-merging process is based on a weighted, directed graph. Two complementary graph-based clustering rules are proposed, namely, the strong rule and the weak rule. These rules take advantage of the natural structures present in the graph. Experimental results on different types of scenes demonstrate the ability of the proposed technique to automatically partition the scene into its constituent objects     

Spatial color image segmentation based on finite non-Gaussian mixture models

Finite mixture models are one of the most widely and commonly used probabilistic techniques for image segmentation. Although the most well known and commonly used distribution when considering mixture models is the Gaussian, it is certainly not the best approximation for image segmentation and other related image processing problems. In this paper, we propose and investigate the use of several other mixture models based namely on Dirichlet, generalized Dirichlet and Beta–Liouville distributions, which offer more flexibility in data modeling, for image segmentation. A maximum likelihood (ML) based algorithm is applied for estimating the resulted segmentation model’s parameters. Spatial information is also employed for figuring out the number of regions in an image and several color spaces are investigated and compared. The experimental results show that the proposed segmentation framework yields good overall performance, on various color scenes, that is better than comparable techniques.     

Multiresolution color image segmentation

Image segmentation is the process by which an original image is partitioned into some homogeneous regions. In this paper, a novel multiresolution color image segmentation (MCIS) algorithm which uses Markov random fields (MRF's) is proposed. The proposed approach is a relaxation process that converges to the MAP (maximum a posteriori) estimate of the segmentation. The quadtree structure is used to implement the multiresolution framework, and the simulated annealing technique is employed to control the splitting and merging of nodes so as to minimize an energy function and therefore, maximize the MAP estimate. The multiresolution scheme enables the use of different dissimilarity measures at different resolution levels. Consequently, the proposed algorithm is noise resistant. Since the global clustering information of the image is required in the proposed approach, the scale space filter (SSF) is employed as the first step. The multiresolution approach is used to refine the segmentation. Experimental results of both the synthesized and real images are very encouraging. In order to evaluate experimental results of both synthesized images and real images quantitatively, a new evaluation criterion is proposed and developed     

局部颜色模型的交互式Graph-Cut分割算法

由于目前大多数交互式Graph-Cut分割算法很难达到精确分割且实时交互的效果.对此,提出一种基于局部颜色模型的改进算法.该算法利用Mean-Shift预分割,建立基于局部颜色模型的交互式分割框架,并将像素级的Graph-Cut算法转化为基于区域的算法进行快速求解.预分割之后的区域保持了原有图像的结构,不仅提高了采用局部颜色模型估计分布的准确性,而且基于区域Graph-Cut的算法明显降低了计算的复杂度.实验结果表明,改进后的算法不仅保证了分割的精确性,而且还达到了实时交互.     

Hand image segmentation using color and RCE neural network

This paper presents a color segmentation method based on RCE neural network for hand image segmentation in the gesture-based human–service robot interaction system. The study on skin color distributions in different color spaces indicates that skin colors cluster in a small region in a color space. The RCE neural network characterizes the skin color distribution region using skin color prototypes together with their spherical influence fields during training stage, and identifies the skin regions in the color image during running stage. Experimental results have demonstrated the effectiveness of this method for the segmentation of various hand images as well as general color images with complex backgrounds.