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.     

Multilevel segmentation of histopathological images using cooccurrence of tissue objects

This paper presents a new approach for unsupervised segmentation of histopathological tissue images. This approach has two main contributions. First, it introduces a new set of high-level texture features to represent the prior knowledge of spatial organization of the tissue components. These texture features are defined on the tissue components, which are approximately represented by tissue objects, and quantify the frequency of two component types being cooccurred in a particular spatial relationship. As they are defined on components, rather than on image pixels, these object cooccurrence features are expected to be less vulnerable to noise and variations that are typically observed at the pixel level of tissue images. Second, it proposes to obtain multiple segmentations by multilevel partitioning of a graph constructed on the tissue objects and combine them by an ensemble function. This multilevel graph partitioning algorithm introduces randomization in graph construction and refinements in its multilevel scheme to increase diversity of individual segmentations, and thus, improve the final result. The experiments on 200 colon tissue images reveal that the proposed approach--the object cooccurrence features together with the multilevel segmentation algorithm--is effective to obtain high-quality results. The experiments also show that it improves the segmentation results compared to the previous approaches.     

A new approach in content-based image retrieval using fuzzy

Finding an image from a large set of images is an extremely difficult problem. One solution is to label images manually, but this is very expensive, time consuming and infeasible for many applications. Furthermore, the labeling process depends on the semantic accuracy in describing the image. Therefore many Content based Image Retrieval (CBIR) systems are developed to extract low-level features for describing the image content. However, this approach decreases the human interaction with the system due to the semantic gap between low-level features and high-level concepts. In this study we make use of fuzzy logic to improve CBIR by allowing users to express their requirements in words, the natural way of human communication. In our system the image is represented by a Fuzzy Attributed Relational Graph (FARG) that describes each object in the image, its attributes and spatial relation. The texture and color attributes are computed in a way that model the Human Vision System (HSV). We proposed a new approach for graph matching that resemble the human thinking process. The proposed system is evaluated by different users with different perspectives and is found to match users’ satisfaction to a high degree.     

基于融合图像特征库的夜视图像彩色化研究

提出一种基于图像融合技术的夜视图像彩色化方法,结合红外图像和微光图像各自的特点,利用小波图像融合的方法把红外图像和微光图像进行融合,从大量的融合图像中提取不同物体的纹理特征,构成野外环境下的纹理图像库,并对每类图像指定相应的彩色参考图像。对目标图像进行分割,提取目标图像的纹理特征与图像库进行相似性对比,完成目标图像的色彩传递。实验结果表明,该算法获得真实的场景色彩,使观察者更容易获得图像的场景信息。     

A fully unsupervised color textured image segmentation algorithm using weighted mean histograms features

A new integrated feature distribution-based color textured image segmentation algorithm has been proposed. Two novel histogram-based inherent color texture feature extraction methods have been presented. From the histogram features, mean color texture histogram is calculated. Instead of concatenating the feature channels, a multichannel nonparametric Bayesean clustering is employed for primary segmentation. A region homogeneity-based merging algorithm is used for final segmentation. The proposed feature extraction techniques inherently combine color texture features rather then explicitly extracting it. Use of nonparametric Bayesean clustering makes the segmentation framework fully unsupervised where no a priori knowledge about the number of color texture regions is required. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed method have been demonstrated by various experiments using color textured and natural images. The experimental results reveal that superior segmentation results can be obtained through the proposed unsupervised segmentation framework.     

基于Gabor小波的无边缘活动围道纹理分割方法

该文提出了一种基于Gabor小波的活动围道纹理分割新方法。该方法先用Gabor小波提取图像的纹理特征,再用Chan-Vese模型进行分割。与其它基于Chan-Vese模型的纹理分割方法相比,基于Gabor小波的活动围道的纹理分割方法有两个优点:一是同时使用纹理特征和灰度信息演化围道,可分割纹理图像和非纹理图像,分割方法的灵活性好;二是在分割多类目标时,采用多级分层式曲线演化方法解决了初始围道难以选择的问题。对自然界真实图像和遥感图像的分割实验结果说明,该文提出的分割方法精度高。     

融合纹理特征与螺旋状搜索聚类的超像素分割算法及应用

针对传统SLIC(simple linear iterative clustering)超像素分割算法没有综合考虑图像的纹理信息特征,导致对边缘信息较强和纹理复杂的图像进行超像素分割时,出现边缘检测不灵敏,分割效果不理想的问题.提出了把原图像先经过噪声抑制提取出纹理特征分量,构建以颜色特性、纹理特征和空间位置特征相融合的相似性度量方法.改进后的方法提高了边缘检测的灵敏度,增强了算法在对边缘信息较强和纹理复杂图像进行分割时的鲁棒性.另外,提出利用螺旋线状的搜索方式进行聚类,加速了算法的收敛速度,提高了分割效率.改进后的方法在BSDS500公共数据集上进行了实验,结果显示改进后的方法在边缘召回率、欠分割错误率、可完成的分割精度以及算法运行时间四项指标上优于传统算法.     

Unsupervised Texture Segmentation of Natural Scene Images Using Region-based Markov Random Field

In analyzing natural scene images, texture plays an important role because such images are full of various textures. Although texture is crucial information in analyzing natural scene images, the texture segmentation problem is still hard to solve since the texture often exhibit non-uniform statistical characteristics. Although there are several supervised approaches that partition an image according to pre-defined semantic categories, the ever-changing appearances in the natural images make such schemes intractable. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel unsupervised texture segmentation method for natural images by using the Region-based Markov Random Field (RMRF) model which enforces the spatial coherence between neighbor regions. We introduce the concept of pivot regions which plays a decisive role to incorporate local data interaction. By forcing pivot regions to adhere to initial labels, we make the Markov Random Field evolve fast and precisely. The proposed algorithm based on the pivot regions and the MRF for encapsulating spatial dependencies between neighborhoods yields high performance for the unsupervised segmentation of natural scene images. Quantitative and qualitative evaluations prove that the proposed method achieves comparable results with other algorithms.     

Fractional Brownian motion models for synthetic aperture radarimagery scene segmentation

The application of fractal random process models and their related scaling parameters as features in the analysis and segmentation of clutter in high-resolution, polarimetric synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery is demonstrated. Specifically, the fractal dimension of natural clutter sources, such as grass and trees, is computed and used as a texture feature for a Bayesian classifier. The SAR shadows are segmented in a separate manner using the original backscatter power as a discriminant. The proposed segmentation process yields a three-class segmentation map for the scenes considered in this study (with three clutter types: shadows, trees, and grass). The difficulty of computing texture metrics in high-speckle SAR imagery is addressed. In particular, a two-step preprocessing approach consisting of polarimetric minimum speckle filtering followed by noncoherent spatial averaging is used. The relevance of the resulting segmentation maps to constant-false-alarm-rate (CFAR) radar target detection techniques is discussed     

基于交互式分割和勾画匹配的颜色迁移

针对经典全局颜色迁移算法在处理具有复杂色彩的自然图像时常出现较多颜色误传的问题,提出一种基于交互式分割与勾画匹配的局部自适应颜色迁移算法。该算法不仅适用于彩色图像间的颜色迁移,而且适用于灰度图着色。算法基本思路是首先分别对两幅图像进行交互式分割,然后对分割后图像的同质景物区域进行勾画匹配,最后在相匹配区域间进行局部颜色迁移。实验结果表明该算法能很好地实现参考图像和目标图像中同质景物内容区域间的颜色迁移,减少颜色误传的现象。结果图像颜色自然度与局部景物一致度有明显提高。     

一种基于形态学的红外目标分割方法

研究自然背景下红外图像中目标分割的问题,提出了一种基于形态学的红外目标分割方法．该方法先利用形态学滤波,对红外目标图像中的噪声和微小的干扰区域进行滤除,接着根据提出的计算图像形态梯度的多尺度算法提取图像梯度,而后用改进的分水岭算法对图像进行分割,最后针对过分割问题提出了一种新的区域融合方法．实验结果表明,该算法能较好地解决红外图像中的目标分割问题．     

Unsupervised segmentation of synthetic aperture Radar sea ice imagery using a novel Markov random field model

Environmental and sensor challenges pose difficulties for the development of computer-assisted algorithms to segment synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sea ice imagery. In this research, in support of operational activities at the Canadian Ice Service, images containing visually separable classes of either ice and water or multiple ice classes are segmented. This work uses image intensity to discriminate ice from water and uses texture features to identify distinct ice types. In order to seamlessly combine image spatial relationships with various image features, a novel Bayesian segmentation approach is developed and applied. This new approach uses a function-based parameter to weight the two components in a Markov random field (MRF) model. The devised model allows for automatic estimation of MRF model parameters to produce accurate unsupervised segmentation results. Experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm is able to successfully segment various SAR sea ice images and achieve improvement over existing published methods including the standard MRF-based method, finite Gamma mixture model, and K-means clustering.     

Hierarchical Multiple Markov Chain Model for Unsupervised Texture Segmentation

In this paper, we present a novel multiscale texture model and a related algorithm for the unsupervised segmentation of color images. Elementary textures are characterized by their spatial interactions with neighboring regions along selected directions. Such interactions are modeled, in turn, by means of a set of Markov chains, one for each direction, whose parameters are collected in a feature vector that synthetically describes the texture. Based on the feature vectors, the texture are then recursively merged, giving rise to larger and more complex textures, which appear at different scales of observation: accordingly, the model is named Hierarchical Multiple Markov Chain (H-MMC). The Texture Fragmentation and Reconstruction (TFR) algorithm, addresses the unsupervised segmentation problem based on the H-MMC model. The “fragmentation” step allows one to find the elementary textures of the model, while the “reconstruction” step defines the hierarchical image segmentation based on a probabilistic measure (texture score) which takes into account both region scale and inter-region interactions. The performance of the proposed method was assessed through the Prague segmentation benchmark, based on mosaics of real natural textures, and also tested on real-world natural and remote sensing images.      

Adaptive segmentation of textured images by using the coupled Markov random field model.

Although simple and efficient, traditional feature-based texture segmentation methods usually suffer from the intrinsical less inaccuracy, which is mainly caused by the oversimplified assumption that each textured subimage used to estimate a feature is homogeneous. To solve this problem, an adaptive segmentation algorithm based on the coupled Markov random field (CMRF) model is proposed in this paper. The CMRF model has two mutually dependent components: one models the observed image to estimate features, and the other models the labeling to achieve segmentation. When calculating the feature of each pixel, the homogeneity of the subimage is ensured by using only the pixels currently labeled as the same pattern. With the acquired features, the labeling is obtained through solving a maximum a posteriori problem. In our adaptive approach, the feature set and the labeling are mutually dependent on each other, and therefore are alternately optimized by using a simulated annealing scheme. With the gradual improvement of features' accuracy, the labeling is able to locate the exact boundary of each texture pattern adaptively. The proposed algorithm is compared with a simple MRF model based method in segmentation of Brodatz texture mosaics and real scene images. The satisfying experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach can differentiate textured images more accurately.     

基于Word Embedding的遥感影像检测分割

遥感影像检测分割技术通常需提取影像特征并通过深度学习算法挖掘影像的深层特征来实现.然而传统特征（如颜色特征、纹理特征、空间关系特征等）不能充分描述影像语义信息,而单一结构或串联算法无法充分挖掘影像的深层特征和上下文语义信息.针对上述问题,本文通过词嵌入将空间关系特征映射成实数密集向量,与颜色、纹理特征的结合.其次,本文构建基于注意力机制下图卷积网络和独立循环神经网络的遥感影像检测分割并联算法（Attention Graph Convolution Networks and Independently Recurrent Neural Network,ATGIR）.该算法首先通过注意力机制对结合后的特征进行概率权重分配;然后利用图卷积网络（GCNs）算法对高权重的特征进一步挖掘并生成方向标签,同时使用独立循环神经网络（IndRNN）算法挖掘影像特征中的上下文信息,最后用Sigmoid分类器完成影像检测分割任务.以胡杨林遥感影像检测分割任务为例,我们验证了提出的特征提取方法和ATGIR算法能有效提升胡杨林检测分割任务的性能.     

Nonlinear Gaussian filtering approach for object segmentation

Gaussian filter kernels can be used to smooth textures for image segmentation. In so-called anisotropic diffusion techniques, the smoothing process is adapted according to the edge direction to preserve the edges. However, the segment borders obtained with this approach do not necessarily coincide with physical object contours, especially in the case of textured objects. A novel segmentation technique involving weighted Gaussian filtering is introduced. The extraction of true object masks is performed by smoothing edges due to texture and preserving true object borders. In this process, additional features such as disparity or motion are taken into account. The method presented has been successfully applied in the context of object segmentation to natural scenes and object-based disparity estimation for stereoscopic applications     

Adaptive Crowd Segmentation Based on Coherent Motion Detection

In order to obtain effective crowd relationships for crowd behavior analysis, an adaptive crowd segmentation method based on coherent motion detection is proposed. This method can improve the accuracy of segmentation results and be adaptively applied to various collective scenes that have different distributions at different scales. Firstly, an orientation clustering algorithm and a spatial joint strategy are proposed to preliminarily profile all agents into several partitions with different motion orientations. Then, the Natural Nearest Neighbor algorithm is introduced to construct the adaptive crowd motion networks combining with the profiling results, which can describe the neighborhood relationships of agents with stronger coherence. Finally, the improved Coherent Neighbor Invariance optimized by fusing motion information of neighbors is proposed to segment crowds with coherent motions from the crowd motion networks. The experiment results on videos depicting real-world crowd scenes indicate that the proposed method is effective and adaptive to various scenes.