A novel image edge detection algorithm based on neutrosophic set

Neutrosophic set (NS) theory is a formal framework to study the origin, nature, and scope of the neutral state. In this paper, neutrosophic set is applied in image domain and a new directional α-mean operation is defined. Based on this operation, neutrosophic set is applied into image edge detection procedure. First, the image is transformed into NS domain, which is described by three membership sets: T, I and F. Then, a directional α-mean operation is employed to reduce the indeterminacy of the image. Finally, a neutrosophic edge detection algorithm (NSED) is proposed based on the neutrosophic set and its operation to detect edge. Experiments have been conducted using numerous artificial and real images. The results demonstrate the NSED can detect the edges effectively and accurately. Particularly, it can remove the noise effect and detect the edges on both the noise-free images and the images with different levels of noises.     

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.     

A novel image segmentation approach based on neutrosophic c-means clustering and indeterminacy filtering

This paper presents a novel image segmentation algorithm based on neutrosophic c-means clustering and indeterminacy filtering method. Firstly, the image is transformed into neutrosophic set domain. Then, a new filter, indeterminacy filter is designed according to the indeterminacy value on the neutrosophic image, and the neighborhood information is utilized to remove the indeterminacy in the spatial neighborhood. Neutrosophic c-means clustering is then used to cluster the pixels into different groups, which has advantages to describe the indeterminacy in the intensity. The indeterminacy filter is employed again to remove the indeterminacy in the intensity. Finally, the segmentation results are obtained according to the refined membership in the clustering after indeterminacy filtering operation. A variety of experiments are performed to evaluate the performance of the proposed method, and a newly published method neutrosophic similarity clustering (NSC) segmentation algorithm is utilized to compare with the proposed method quantitatively. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm has better performances in quantitatively and qualitatively.

     

自适应梯度重建分水岭分割算法

目的 针对灰度分水岭算法存在过分割且难以直接应用到彩色图像分割的问题,提出一种自适应梯度重建分水岭分割算法。方法 该方法首先利用PCA技术对彩色图像降维,然后计算降维后的梯度图像,并采用自适应重建算法修正梯度图像,最后对优化后的梯度图像应用分水岭变换实现对彩色图像的正确分割。结果 采用融合了颜色距离、均方差和区域信息的性能指标和分割区域数对分割效果进行评估,对不同类型的彩色图像进行分割实验,本文算法在正确分割图像的同时获得了较高的性能指标。与现有的分水岭分割算法相比,提出的方法能有效剔除图像中的伪极小值,减少图像中的极小值数目,从而解决了过分割问题,有效提升了分割效果。结论 本文算法具有较好的适用性和较高的鲁棒性。     

基于热平衡的中智学图像分割方法

为降低噪声对图像分割结果的影响,提出一种基于热平衡理论的中智学图像分割方法。该方法将图像转化为中智学图像,考虑每一个像素的不确定性,通过热平衡运算及图像增强处理,使噪声点变得更平滑,再使用γ-均值聚类方法分割图像。实验结果表明,对于含不同程度噪声的图像,该方法的分割效果明显优于中智学方法及改进的模糊C-均值方法。     

基于相似性的中智学图像分割方法

针对传统图像分割算法抗噪性差的问题,提出基于相似性的中智学图像分割方法。该方法在中智学基础上,利用图像信息的不确定性,结合相似性运算对图像信息进行处理。根据像素点的不确定性,图像在中智学领域内经相似性运算和图像增强后,利用聚类将其分割。实验结果显示,该方法可以有效剔除噪声,提高图像的信噪比,对合成图像分割错误率仅为0.110 7,低于其他方法,表明本方法在抗噪性以及图像分割效果上比其他方法更为理想。     

局部区域拟合的快速水平集图像分割方法

目的 由于灰度不均匀图像在不同目标区域的灰度分布存在严重的重叠,对其进行分割仍然是一个难题;同时,图像中的噪声严重降低了图像分割的准确性。因此,传统水平集方法无法鲁棒、精确、快速地对具有灰度不均匀性和噪声的图像进行分割。针对这一问题,提出一种基于局部区域信息的快速水平集图像分割方法。方法 灰度不均匀图像通常被描述为一个分段常数图像乘以一个缓慢变化的偏移场。首先,通过一个经过微调的多尺度均值滤波器来估计图像的偏移场,并对图像进行预处理以减轻图像的不均匀性;然后,利用基于偏移场校正的方法和基于局部区域信息拟合的方法分别构建能量项,并利用演化曲线轮廓内外图像灰度分布的重叠程度,构建权重函数自适应调整两个能量项之间的权重;最后,引入全方差规则项对水平集进行约束,增强了数值计算的稳定性和对噪声的鲁棒性,并通过加性算子分裂策略实现水平集快速演化。结果 在具有不同灰度不均匀性和噪声图像上的分割结果表明,所提方法不但对初始轮廓的位置、灰度不均匀性和各种噪声具有较强的鲁棒性,而且具有高达94.5%的分割精度和较高的分割效率,与传统水平集方法相比分割精度至少提高了20.6%,分割效率是LIC（local intensity clustering）模型的9倍;结论 本文提出一种基于局部区域信息的快速水平集图像分割方法。实验结果表明,与传统水平集方法相比具有较高的分割精度和分割效率,可以很好地应用于具有灰度不均匀和噪声的医学、红外和自然图像等的分割。     

Fast and robust fuzzy c-means clustering algorithms incorporating local information for image segmentation

Fuzzy c-means (FCM) algorithms with spatial constraints (FCM_S) have been proven effective for image segmentation. However, they still have the following disadvantages: (1) although the introduction of local spatial information to the corresponding objective functions enhances their insensitiveness to noise to some extent, they still lack enough robustness to noise and outliers, especially in absence of prior knowledge of the noise; (2) in their objective functions, there exists a crucial parameter α used to balance between robustness to noise and effectiveness of preserving the details of the image, it is selected generally through experience; and (3) the time of segmenting an image is dependent on the image size, and hence the larger the size of the image, the more the segmentation time. In this paper, by incorporating local spatial and gray information together, a novel fast and robust FCM framework for image segmentation, i.e., fast generalized fuzzy c-means (FGFCM) clustering algorithms, is proposed. FGFCM can mitigate the disadvantages of FCM_S and at the same time enhances the clustering performance. Furthermore, FGFCM not only includes many existing algorithms, such as fast FCM and enhanced FCM as its special cases, but also can derive other new algorithms such as FGFCM_S1 and FGFCM_S2 proposed in the rest of this paper. The major characteristics of FGFCM are: (1) to use a new factor S_ij as a local (both spatial and gray) similarity measure aiming to guarantee both noise-immunity and detail-preserving for image, and meanwhile remove the empirically-adjusted parameter α; (2) fast clustering or segmenting image, the segmenting time is only dependent on the number of the gray-levels q rather than the size N(?q) of the image, and consequently its computational complexity is reduced from O(NcI₁) to O(qcI₂), where c is the number of the clusters, I₁ and are the numbers of iterations, respectively, in the standard FCM and our proposed fast segmentation method. The experiments on the synthetic and real-world images show that FGFCM algorithm is effective and efficient.     

融合区域和边缘特征的水平集水下图像分割

目的 水平集模型是图像分割中的一种先进方法,在陆地环境图像分割中展现出较好效果。特征融合策略被广泛引入到该模型框架,以拉伸目标-背景对比度,进而提高对高噪声、杂乱纹理等多类复杂图像的处理性能。然而,在水下环境中,由于水体高散射、强衰减等多因素的共同作用,使得现有图像特征及水平集模型难以适用于对水下图像的分割任务,分割结果与目标形态间存在较大差异。鉴于此,提出一种适用于水下图像分割的区域-边缘水平集模型,以提高水下图像目标分割的准确性。方法 综合应用图像的区域特征及边缘特征对水下目标进行辨识。对于区域特征,引入水下图像显著性特征;对于边缘特征,创新性地提出了一种基于深度信息的边缘特征提取方法。所提方法在融合区域级和边缘级特征的基础上,引入距离正则项对水平集函数进行规范,以增强水平集函数演化的稳定性。结果 基于YouTube和Bubblevision的水下数据集的实验结果表明,所提方法不仅对高散射强衰减的低对比度水下图像实现较好的分割效果,同时对处理强背景噪声图像也有较好的鲁棒性,与水平集分割方法（local pre-fitting,LPF）相比,分割精确度至少提高11.5%,与显著性检测方法（hierarchical co-salient detection via color names,HCN）相比,精确度提高6.7%左右。结论 实验表明区域-边缘特征融合以及其基础上的水平集模型能够较好地克服水下图像分割中的部分难点,所提方法能够较好分割水下目标区域并拟合目标轮廓,与现有方法对比获得了较好的分割结果。     

A level set method based on the Bayesian risk for medical image segmentation

This paper proposes an alternative criterion derived from the Bayesian risk classification error for image segmentation. The proposed model introduces a region-based force determined through the difference of the posterior image densities for the different classes, a term based on the prior probability derived from Kullback-Leibler information number, and a regularity term adopted to avoid the generation of excessively irregular and small segmented regions. Compared with other level set methods, the proposed approach relies on the optimum decision of pixel classification and the estimates of prior probabilities; thus the approach has more reliability in theory and practice. Experiments show that the proposed approach is able to extract the complicated shapes of targets and robust for various types of medical images. Moreover, the algorithm can be easily extendable for multiphase segmentation.     

A de-texturing and spatially constrained K-means approach for image segmentation

This paper presents a new and simple segmentation method based on the K-means clustering procedure and a two-step process. The first step relies on an original de-texturing procedure which aims at converting the input natural textured color image into a color image, without texture, that will be easier to segment. Once, this de-textured (color) image is estimated, a final segmentation is achieved by a spatially-constrained K-means segmentation. These spatial constraints help the iterative K-means labeling process to succeed in finding an accurate segmentation by taking into account the inherent spatial relationships and the presence of pre-estimated homogeneous textural regions in the input image. This procedure has been successfully applied on the Berkeley image database. The experiments reported in this paper demonstrate that the proposed method is efficient (in terms of visual evaluation and quantitative performance measures) and performs competitively compared to the best existing state-of-the-art segmentation methods recently proposed in the literature.     

综合边界和纹理信息的合成孔径雷达图像目标分割

目的 针对传统Grab Cut算法需要人工交互操作,无法实现合成孔径雷达（SAR）图像的自动分割,且方式单一（仅利用边界或纹理信息中的一种）的问题,提出一种综合利用边界和纹理信息的改进Grab Cut算法,实现对SAR图像目标的自动分割。方法 首先将其他格式的彩色或灰度SAR图像转化为24 bit的位图,采用图形理论对整幅SAR图像建模,根据最大流算法找到描述图的能量函数最小的割集,从而分割出目标区域;然后采用中值滤波抑制相干噪声;最后通过邻域生长算法滤除图像斑点和小目标的干扰,从而达到目标边界的连接,实现自动对SAR图像中的目标进行分割。结果 在64位Window 7环境下采用MATLAB R2014处理平台,对楼房、车库、大树、汽车群等4幅分辨率不同的SAR图像进行目标分割实验,特征目标被自动分割出来,耗时分别为1.69 s、1.58 s、1.84 s和3.09 s,相比Mean-shift和Otsu算法,平均计算效率分别提升150%和3%,并且图像中的背景杂波、目标阴影和干扰小目标均被有效去除。结论 综合利用边界和纹理信息能够有效抑制相干噪声,去除图像斑点和小目标的干扰,从而达到目标边界的连接,实现对SAR图像目标的自动分割。实验结果表明,本文算法可以满足工程化应用要求,自适应性强,分割精度高,且具有较好的鲁棒性。     

灰度图像交叉熵阈值法的三维推广

针对现有的灰度图像交叉熵阈值化方法无法有效分割含有混合噪声图像的问题,在图像三维直方图的基础上提出三维交叉熵阈值化算法,同时给出三维交叉熵阈值法的快速递推公式.实验结果表明,三维方法结合了图像中像素的灰度及其局部空间的均值和中值信息,对于含有混合噪声的图像,具有比现有交叉熵阈值化算法更好的分割效果.     

图像局部交互熵分割模型的两步快速优化

目的 针对LCK（local correntropy-based K-means）模型收敛速度慢,提出新的基于LCK模型的两步快速分割模型。方法 两步快速分割模型包括粗分割和细分割。1）粗分割：先将待分割的原始图像下采样,减少数据量;然后使用LCK模型对采样后的粗尺度图像进行分割,得到粗分割结果及其相应的粗水平集函数。由于数据量的减少,粗分割步骤可以快速得到近似分割结果。2）细分割：在水平集函数光滑性约束下,将粗分割结果及其对应的粗水平集函数上采样到原始图像的尺度,然后将上采样后的粗水平集函数作为细分割的初始值,利用LCK模型对原始图像进行精细分割。因初始值与真实目标边界很接近,所以只需很少迭代次数就能得到最终分割结果。结果 采用F-score评价方法分析自然以及合成图像的分割结果,并与LCK模型作比较,新的模型F-score数值最大,且迭代次数不大于50。结论 粗分割步骤能在小数据量的情况下,快速分割出粗略的目标;细分割步骤在较好的初始值条件下,能够快速收敛到最终的分割结果,从而有效提高了模型的计算效率和精确性。本文算法主要适用于分割含有未知噪声及灰度非同质的医学图像,且分割效率高。     

结合全局与局部信息活动轮廓的非同质图像分割

目的 通过对现有基于区域的活动轮廓模型能量泛函的Euler-Lagrange方程进行变形,建立其与K-means方法的等价关系,提出一种新的基于K-means活动轮廓模型,该模型能有效分割灰度非同质图像。方法 结合图像全局和局部信息,根据交互熵的特性,提出新的局部自适应权重,它根据像素点所在邻域的局部统计信息自适应地确定各个像素点的分割阈值,排除灰度非同质分割目标的影响。结果 采用Jaccard相似系数-JS(Jaccard similarity)和Dice相似系数-DSC(Dice similarity coefficient)两个指标对自然以及合成图像的分割结果进行定量分析,与传统及最新经典的活动轮廓模型相比,新模型JS和DSC的值最接近1,且迭代次数不多于50次。提出的模型具有较高的计算效率和准确率。结论 通过大量实验发现,新模型结合图像全局和局部信息,利用交互熵特性得到自适应权重,对初始曲线位置具有稳定性,且对灰度非同质图像具有较好地分割效果。本文算法主要适用于分割含有噪声及灰度非同质的医学图像,而且分割结果对初始轮廓具有鲁棒性。     

Adaptive spatial information-theoretic clustering for image segmentation

The incorporation of spatial context into clustering algorithms for image segmentation has recently received a significant amount of attention. Many modified clustering algorithms have been proposed and proven to be effective for image segmentation. In this paper, we propose a different framework for incorporating spatial information with the aim of achieving robust and accurate segmentation in case of mixed noise without using experimentally set parameters based on the original robust information clustering (RIC) algorithm, called adaptive spatial information-theoretic clustering (ASIC) algorithm. The proposed objective function has a new dissimilarity measure, and the weighting factor for neighborhood effect is fully adaptive to the image content. It enhances the smoothness towards piecewise-homogeneous segmentation and reduces the edge blurring effect. Furthermore, a unique characteristic of the new information segmentation algorithm is that it has the capabilities to eliminate outliers at different stages of the ASIC algorithm. These result in improved segmentation result by identifying and relabeling the outliers in a relatively stronger noisy environment. Comprehensive experiments and a new information-theoretic proof are carried out to illustrate that our new algorithm can consistently improve the segmentation result while effectively handles the edge blurring effect. The experimental results with both synthetic and real images demonstrate that the proposed method is effective and robust to mixed noise and the algorithm outperforms other popular spatial clustering variants.     

多描述子活动轮廓模型的医学图像分割

目的 医学图像分割结果可帮助医生进行预测、诊断及制定治疗方案。医学图像在采集过程中受多种因素影响,同一组织往往具有不同灰度,且伴有强噪声。现有的针对医学图像的分割方法,对图像的灰度分布描述不够充分,不足以为精确的分割图像信息,且抗噪性较差。为实现医学图像的精确分割,提出一种多描述子的活动轮廓（MDAC）模型。方法 首先,引入图像的熵,结合图像的局部均值和方差共同描述图像的灰度分布。其次,在贝叶斯框架下,引入灰度偏移因子,建立活动轮廓模型的能量泛函。最后,利用梯度下降流法得到水平集演化公式,演化的最后在完成分割的同时实现偏移场的矫正。结果 利用合成图像和心脏、血管和脑等医学图像进行了仿真实验。利用MDAC模型对加噪的灰度不均图像进行分割,结果显示,在完成精确分割的同时实现了纠偏。通过对比分割前后图像的灰度直方图,纠偏图像只包含对应两相的两个峰,且界限更加清晰;与经典分割算法进行对比,MDAC在视觉效果和定量分析中,分割效果最好,比LIC的分割精度提高了30%多。结论 实验结果表明,利用均值、方差和局部熵共同描述图像灰度分布,保证了算法的精度。局部熵的引入,在保证算法精度的同时,提高了算法的抗噪性。能泛中嵌入偏移因子,保证算法精确分割的同时实现偏移场纠正,进一步提高分割精度。     

结合分数阶微分和图像局部信息的CV模型

目的 由于CV模型仅利用了图像的全局信息,其对灰度不均匀图像的分割效果不理想,同时在分割弱边缘和弱纹理图像时,优化易陷入局部最优从而导致分割效率低下,且对初始位置的选择较为敏感。针对这些问题,提出一种结合分数阶微分和图像局部信息的CV模型。方法 首先将分数阶梯度信息融入图像的局部信息中,用来替代CV模型的整数阶全局信息,并建立自适应计算分数阶最佳阶次的数学模型,然后在模型中加入符号距离的约束项。结果 一方面,用局部信息代替全局信息,可以在一定程度上解决CV模型对灰度不均匀图像分割效果不理想的问题。另一方面,将Grünwald-Letnikov分数阶梯度信息融合到局部信息中,当分数阶阶次0 < α < 1时,增加了图像灰度不均匀、弱边缘、弱纹理区域的梯度信息,从而增加了演化驱动力避免演化曲线陷入局部最优,有效地解决了图像因灰度变化不大导致演化曲线驱动力小的问题,在一定程度上解决了模型对初始轮廓位置选择和对噪声敏感的问题。同时为了解决人工选取最佳分数阶阶次费时费力的问题,根据图像的梯度模值和信息熵建立计算分数阶最佳阶次的数学模型,将此自适应分数阶模型应用到算法之中,以自适应确定最佳分数阶阶次。此外,为了避免模型的重新初始化,在模型中加入符号距离的约束项,从而提高了曲线的演化效率。结论 理论分析和实验结果均表明,该算法能够较好地分割灰度不均匀、弱边缘和弱纹理区域的图像,并能根据图像特征自适应确定最佳分数阶阶次,提高了分割精度和分割效率,且对初始轮廓位置选择及噪声均具有一定的鲁棒性。     

融合全局和局部相关熵的图像分割

目的 针对LCK(local correntropy-based K-means)模型对初始轮廓敏感的问题,提出了新的基于全局和局部相关熵的GLCK(global and local correntropy-based K-means)动态组合模型。方法 首先将相关熵准则引入到CV(Chan-Vese)模型中,得到新的基于全局相关熵的GCK(global correntropy-based K-means)模型。然后,结合LCK模型,提出GLCK组合模型,并给出一种动态组合算法来优化GLCK模型。该模型分两步来完成分割:第1步,用GCK模型分割出目标的大致轮廓;第2步,将上一步得到的轮廓作为LCK模型的初始轮廓,对图像进行精确分割。结果 主观上,对自然图像和人工合成图像进行分割,并同LCK模型、LBF模型以及CV模型进行对比,结果表明本文所提模型的鲁棒性比上述模型都要好;客观上,对BSD库中的两幅自然图像进行分割,并采用Jaccard相似性比率进行定量分析,准确率分别为91.37%和89.12%。结论 本文算法主要适用于分割含有未知噪声及灰度分布不均匀的医学图像及结构简单的自然图像,并且分割结果对初始轮廓具有鲁棒性。     

A novel segmentation model for medical images with intensity inhomogeneity based on adaptive perturbation

In medical field, it remains challenging to accurately segment medical images due to low contrast, complex noises and intensity inhomogeneity. To overcome these obstacles, this paper provides a novel edge-based active contour model (ACM) for medical image segmentation. Specifically, an accurate regularization approach is presented to maintain the level set function with a signed distance property, which guarantees the stability of the evolution curve and the accuracy of the numerical computation. More significantly, an adaptive perturbation is integrated into the framework of the edge-based ACM. The perturbation technique can balance the stability of curve evolution and the accuracy of segmentation, which is key for segmenting medical images with intensity inhomogeneity. A number of experiments on both artificial and real medical images demonstrate that the proposed segmentation model outperforms state-of-the-art methods in terms of robustness to noise and segmentation accuracy.