Active contour model for simultaneous MR image segmentation and denoising

In this paper, a new region-based active contour model is proposed for magnetic resonance image segmentation and denoising based on the global minimization framework and level set evolution. A new region fitting energy based on Nadaraya–Watson estimator and local image information is defined to enforce the curve evolution. By this improved region fitting term, the images with noise and intensity un-uniformity can be segmented and denoised. Inspired by the Perona–Malik diffusion equation, an edge-preserving regularization term is defined through the duality formulation to penalize the length of region boundaries. By this new regularization term, the edge information is utilized to improve the contour?s ability of capturing the edge and remaining smooth during the evolution. The energy functional of the proposed model is minimized by an efficient dual algorithm avoiding the inefficiency of the gradient descent method. Experiments on medical images demonstrate the proposed model provides a hybrid way to perform image segmentation and image denoising simultaneously.     

结合全局和局部信息的“两阶段”活动轮廓模型

目的 LBF(local binary fitting)模型用每个像素点的邻域信息来拟合局部能量,对灰度不均匀图像可以得到很好的分割效果。但是LBF模型只考虑了图像的局部信息,没有考虑全局信息,因此它对初始轮廓大小、形状及位置都非常敏感。针对以上问题,结合全局和局部信息,提出"两阶段"活动轮廓模型。方法第1阶段,采用退化的CV(Chan-Vese)模型,利用图像的全局信息(灰度均值)快速为图像的目标大致定位;第2阶段,以第1阶段结束时的水平集函数的零水平集为第2阶段的初始轮廓,利用图像的局部信息(局部高斯拟合)得到更加精确的分割结果。结果实验结果表明,该"两阶段"活动轮廓模型保留了LBF模型分割灰度不均匀图像的能力。结论改进后的模型较LBF模型对各种初始轮廓(大小、形状、位置)有较强的鲁棒性,以及较强的抗噪性。     

A novel region-based active contour model based on kernel function for image segmentation

It is a difficult task to accurately segment images with intensity inhomogeneity, because most of existing algorithms are based upon the assumption of the homogeneity of image intensity. In this paper, we propose a novel region-based active contour model, referred to as the K-GLIF, which utilizes both global and local image intensity fittings with kernel functions. The model consists of an intensity fitting term and a new regularization term. The intensity fitting term of the level set function is the gradient descent flow that minimizes the global binary fitting energy functional. The local intensity fitting value based on the generalized Gaussian kernel function is then incorporated into the global intensity fitting value to form the weighted intensity fitting value on the two sides of the contour. Owing to the kernel function, the intensity information in local regions is extracted to guide the motion of the contour, which enables the model to effectively segment images with intensity inhomogeneity and smooth noise. A new regularization term is used to control the smoothness of the level set function and avoid complicated re-initialization. Experimental results and comparisons with other models of inhomogeneous images, synthetic images, medical images, multi-object images, natural and infrared images show that the proposed K-GLIF model improves the quality of image segmentation in terms of accuracy and robustness of initial contours.

     

An active contour model driven by anisotropic region fitting energy for image segmentation

A novel region active contour model (ACM) for image segmentation is proposed in this paper. In order to perform an accurate segmentation of images with non-homogeneous intensity, the original region fitting energy in the general region-based ACMs is improved by an anisotropic region fitting energy to evolve the contour. Using the local image information described by the structure tensor, this new region fitting energy is defined in terms of two anisotropic fitting functions that approximate the image intensity along the principal directions of variation of the intensity. Therefore, the anisotropic fitting functions extract intensity information more precisely, which enable our model to cope with the boundaries with low-contrast and complicated structures. It is incorporated into a variational formula with a total variation (TV) regularization term with respect to level set function, from which the segmentation process is performed by minimizing this variational energy functional. Experiments on the vessel and brain magnetic resonance images demonstrate the advantages of the proposed method over Chan–Vese (CV) active contours and local binary active contours (LBF) in terms of both efficiency and accuracy.     

基于局部增强与区域拟合的活动轮廓模型

针对活动轮廓模型在分割弱边缘图像及严重的灰度不均匀图像方面存在轮廓曲线不能很好地演化到目标边界等问题,提出了一种基于局部增强与区域拟合的活动轮廓模型。首先,利用局部区域增强方法将原始图像转换为新图像,以增强图像的对比度。其次,利用统计信息计算图像的区域拟合能量。然后,加入正则项以避免演化轮廓重新初始化,提高图像分割效率。最后,通过灰度不均匀的合成图像和真实图像的实验,验证了该算法的有效性。     

Hybrid geodesic region-based active contours for image segmentation

In this paper, we propose novel hybrid edge and region based active contour models. First, we consider geodesic curve and region-based model, and evolve contours based on global information to segment images with intensity homogeneity. Second, we extend the global model to the local intensity fitting energy for segmenting the images with intensity inhomogeneity. Moreover, the level set regularization term is added to the energy functional to ensure accurate computation and avoid expensive re-initialization of the evolving level set function. Experimental results indicate the proposed method has advantage over the geodesic active contour (GAC) model, the Chan–Vese (C–V) model, the Lankton’s method and the local binary fitting (LBF) model in terms of efficiency and robustness.     

基于梯度的混合Mumford-Shah模型医学图像分割

针对C-V法的水平集图像分割法缺少局部控制能力等问题,将基于边缘的几何主动轮廓线模型和基于区域的C-V法两者结合起来,提出了基于梯度的混合Mumford-Shah图像分割模型HMSG。给出了HMSG模型的参数设置准则,在分割的初期加大模型中全局特征项的权值,在分割的后期则加大局部特征项的权值,以提高模型的图像分割能力。对合成图像与医学图像的分割实验结果表明,该方法优于C-V方法对于含有噪声和边缘模糊的非二值图像的分割,能够较为准确地提取图像边界,可以有效提高图像分割整体性能。     

显著性驱动的局部相似拟合模型分割算法研究

灰度不均匀和噪声图像的分割是计算机视觉中的难点。现有的活动轮廓模型尽管能够取得较好的分割效果,但仍然对噪声图像分割效果不理想,初始轮廓曲线的选取敏感,优化易陷入局部极小导致演化速度慢等问题。针对该问题,首先使用局部区域灰度的均值和方差拟合高斯分布,构建新的能量泛函,均值和方差随着能量的最小化过程而变化,从而增强了灰度不均匀和噪声图像的分割能力。此外,结合视觉显著性检测算法获取待分割目标的先验形状信息,并自适应地创建水平集函数,从而降低了初始轮廓位置敏感性及计算时间复杂度,实现全自动的图像分割。实验结果证明,提出的算法可以用于灰度不均匀和噪声图像分割,并取得了较好的分割性能,消除了算法对初始轮廓位置敏感性,减少了迭代次数。     

基于核特征距离的局部活动轮廓模型

提出了一种基于核特征距离局部活动轮廓分割模型。在模型中使用核特征距离来构造局部拟合能量,从而可以获取精确的局部图像特征,可以分割存在灰度不均匀的图像。并通过引入水平集规范项以避免水平集演化的重新初始化,提高了分割的效率。实验结果表明,本模型可以很好地克服灰度不均匀性,同时在分割精度上有了较大的提升,特别是分割速度比LBF模型快1.3～1.5倍。     

Fast Global Minimization of the Active Contour/Snake Model

The active contour/snake model is one of the most successful variational models in image segmentation. It consists of evolving a contour in images toward the boundaries of objects. Its success is based on strong mathematical properties and efficient numerical schemes based on the level set method. The only drawback of this model is the existence of local minima in the active contour energy, which makes the initial guess critical to get satisfactory results. In this paper, we propose to solve this problem by determining a global minimum of the active contour model. Our approach is based on the unification of image segmentation and image denoising tasks into a global minimization framework. More precisely, we propose to unify three well-known image variational models, namely the snake model, the Rudin–Osher–Fatemi denoising model and the Mumford–Shah segmentation model. We will establish theorems with proofs to determine the existence of a global minimum of the active contour model. From a numerical point of view, we propose a new practical way to solve the active contour propagation problem toward object boundaries through a dual formulation of the minimization problem. The dual formulation, easy to implement, allows us a fast global minimization of the snake energy. It avoids the usual drawback in the level set approach that consists of initializing the active contour in a distance function and re-initializing it periodically during the evolution, which is time-consuming. We apply our segmentation algorithms on synthetic and real-world images, such as texture images and medical images, to emphasize the performances of our model compared with other segmentation models. Research supported by NIH U54RR021813, NSF DMS-0312222, NSF ACI-0321917 and NSF DMI-0327077.     

结合局部特征和全局信息的自适应活动轮廓模型

提出一种新的基于全局图像信息和局部图像特征的活动轮廓分割模型。模型的总能量函数主要包括3项:全局能量项、局部能量项和自适应调节项。其中,全局能量项整合了图像的全局信息,局部能量项则考虑了图像的局部特征,而二者的权重会根据上下文内容自适应调整。由于在模型中充分利用了图像全局信息和局部特征,因而有效地提高了分割的精度。此外,加入了凸优化技术,以获取模型的全局最优解。最后,采用Split-Bregman方法进行快速求解,使得模型的分割效率大大提高。实验结果表明,该模型对初始化具有较好的鲁棒性,在分割精度上有了较大的提升,特别是分割速度比C-V模型快1.5倍到2倍。     

基于区域增长与局部自适应C-V模型的脑血管分割

提出了一种针对TOF MRA(time-of-flight magnetic resonance angiography)磁共振图像的双重分割脑血管提取方法。首先结合高斯滤波,采用二维OTSU算法,结合MIP(maximum intensity projection)图像获得三维血管种子点,定义全局与局部信息相结合的区域增长规则,通过区域增长算法对血管进行粗分割;然后,采用 Catt 扩散模型对体数据场进行各向异性滤波,提出了局部自适应C-V模型,将初步分割结果作为自适应活动轮廓模型的初始轮廓线进行二次分割。实验结果表明,该算法不仅能够有效分割脑血管粗大分支,而且还能精确提取脑血管的细小结构。     

基于区域混合活动轮廓模型的医学图像分割

针对变分水平集算法在图像分割过程中计算量较大且收敛速度慢的现象, 在一些基于区域的活动轮廓模型基础上提出了一种新的基于区域混合模型的非凸正则化活动轮廓模型。该模型构造了一个新的能量泛函,该能量泛函结合了考虑图像局部聚类性质的LBF模型和测地线模型,增加了非凸正则化项,加快了轮廓曲线的收敛速度,可以很好地保持区域形状并能防止边缘过平滑,然后通过经典有限差分法求得能量泛函的极小值。最后,在合成图像和医学图像上做了仿真实验,结果表明,该算法具有较快的收敛速度 和很好的鲁棒性,分割结果也较准确。     

Self-organizing neural networks for image segmentation based on multiphase active contour

Image segmentation is a process of segregating foreground object from background object in an image. This paper proposes a method to perform image segmentation for the color and textured images with a two-step approach. In the first step, self-organizing neurons based on neural networks are used for clustering the input image, and in the second step, multiphase active contour model is used to get various segments of an image. The contours are initialized in the active contour model with the help of the self-organizing maps obtained as a result of first step. From the results, it is inferred that the proposed method provides better segmentation result for all types of images.

     

一种具有拓扑自适应性的图象两步分割方法

为了准确提取出感兴趣区域的边界，研究出一种具有拓扑自适应性的图象两步分割方法，即基于棱边检测算子的B样条活动围道分割方法，该方法首先是进行图象的底层分割，即用基于图象局部特性（像元邻域）操作的棱边检测算子来检测图象的棱边点，然后进行图象的高层分割，即用基于图象全局统计特性的B样条活动围道分割方法来求取对象的准确边界，另外，还提出了基于区域欧拉数的拓扑自适应处理方案，该两图像分割方法具有人为干预少，对初始条件不敏感，拓扑自适应性强等优点，试验结果证明了该方法的有效性。     

结合分布度量统计建模的主动轮廓图像分割

图像分割是数字图像处理中不可或缺的关键步骤。为了解决传统主动轮廓模型针对非匀质图像分割结果不准确且分割效率低的问题,提出一种结合分布度量统计建模的主动轮廓图像分割算法。所提算法的能量驱动力兼顾了图像的全局统计建模信息和其他混合灰度分布信息,使得分割曲线能够更加精确地演化至目标边缘。分布度量能量驱动力定义为轮廓内外概率密度函数定义的比率距离的方差,该能量驱动力基于图像全局信息统计建模,能够更加精确地描述轮廓曲线内外的能量变化;混合灰度分布能量驱动力由图像灰度值与融合均值与中值的区域拟合中心的L2范数表示。将分布度量能量驱动力与混合灰度分布能量驱动力组合形成新的能量泛函,利用水平集方法和梯度下降法迭代求得该能量泛函的最小值,以获得最终的图像分割结果。与传统CV（Chan Vese）模型、LBF（Local Binary Fitting）模型等四种算法的图像分割结果相比,所提模型在主观视觉效果、对初始轮廓的敏感性、运行时间和迭次次数方面均具有较大优势。     

基于边缘熵和局部FT分布的超声图像分割模型

由于采用高斯和瑞利分布描述超声图像均存在较大偏差,且分割过程缺乏超声图像边缘信息引导,致使其相应的局部高斯分布拟合(LGDF)模型和局部瑞利分布拟合(LRDF)模型对超声图像分割性能不理想.针对上述问题,提出了一种边缘熵加权的局部Fisher-Tippett(FT)分布拟合模型.该模型根据超声图像中目标和背景在局部区域...     

A local region-based Chan–Vese model for image segmentation

In this paper, a new region-based active contour model, namely local region-based Chan–Vese (LRCV) model, is proposed for image segmentation. By considering the image local characteristics, the proposed model can effectively and efficiently segment images with intensity inhomogeneity. To reduce the dependency on manual initialization in many active contour models and for an automatic segmentation, a degraded CV model is proposed, whose segmentation result can be taken as the initial contour of the LRCV model. In addition, we regularize the level set function by using Gaussian filtering to keep it smooth in the evolution process. Experimental results on synthetic and real images show the advantages of our method in terms of both effectiveness and robustness. Compared with the well-know local binary fitting (LBF) model, our method is much more computationally efficient and much less sensitive to the initial contour.     

Fast level set image and video segmentation using new evolution indicator operators

We propose an effective level set evolution method for robust object segmentation in real images. We construct an effective region indicator and an multiscale edge indicator, and use these two indicators to adaptively guide the evolution of the level set function. The multiscale edge indicator is defined in the gradient domain of the multiscale feature-preserving filtered image. The region indicator is built on the similarity map between image pixels and user specified interest regions, where the similarity map is computed using Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM). Then we combine these two methods to develop a new mixing edge stop function, which makes the level set method more robust to initial active contour setting, and forces the level set to evolve adaptively based on the image content. Furthermore, we apply an acceleration approach to speed up our evolution process, which yields real time segmentation performance. Finally, we extend the proposed approach to video segmentation for achieving effective target tracking results. As the results show, our approach is effective for image and video segmentation and works well to accurately detect the complex object boundaries in real-time.     

Active contours driven by median global image fitting energy for SAR river image segmentation

The existing active contour models can not achieve accurate segmentation of SAR river images. To solve this difficulty, a novel active contour model driven by median global image fitting energy is proposed. First, the median global fitted image is defined. Then by minimizing the difference between the median global fitted image and the original image, the energy functional of the proposed model is obtained. Moreover, the within-cluster absolute differences of the pixel grayscale values inside and outside the curve are introduced to adaptively adjust the proportions of the region energies inside and outside the curve. Compared with the popular active contour models, extensive experimental results demonstrate the proposed model has clear advantages in terms of both segmentation performance and segmentation efficiency.