Color image segmentation using automatic pixel classification with support vector machine

Automatic segmentation of images is a very challenging fundamental task in computer vision and one of the most crucial steps toward image understanding. In this paper, we present a color image segmentation using automatic pixel classification with support vector machine (SVM). First, the pixel-level color feature is extracted in consideration of human visual sensitivity for color pattern variations, and the image pixel's texture feature is represented via steerable filter. Both the pixel-level color feature and texture feature are used as input of SVM model (classifier). Then, the SVM model (classifier) is trained by using fuzzy c-means clustering (FCM) with the extracted pixel-level features. Finally, the color image is segmented with the trained SVM model (classifier). This image segmentation not only can fully take advantage of the local information of color image, but also the ability of SVM classifier. Experimental evidence shows that the proposed method has a very effective segmentation results and computational behavior, and decreases the time and increases the quality of color image segmentation in compare with the state-of-the-art segmentation methods recently proposed in the literature.