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com Volume 2, Issue 3, May June 2013 ISSN 2278-6856

Comparison of Image Segmentation Algorithms

Arushi Chhabra1, Ankit Gupta2 and Akila Victor3
1,2&3

VIT University, School of Computing Sciences and Engineering, Vellore, Tamilnadu 632014, India

Abstract: Image segmentation is the technique in which

objects can easily be distinguished from the background. This paper presents a new method for segmenting an image such that the pixels with same label share certain visual characteristics. As there are different methods for segmenting an image, here image segmentation by dynamic region merging algorithm and graph cut algorithm are compared with the proposed user interactive maximal similarity segmentation method and results have been obtained on the basis of time taken and clarity of the output obtained. Firstly an image is segmented by mean shift algorithm and the user roughly marks the object and background regions using markers. Then merging of the regions is done on the values of Bhattacharyya coefficient. The results of the experiments show that the proposed method of image segmentation is better than dynamic region merging method and graph cut algorithm with respect to time taken.

Graph cut Algorithm and Dynamic Region Merging algorithm for image segmentation are then compared with the proposed user interactive maximal similarity method and various results have been obtained.

2. IMAGE SEGMENTATION
2.1 Mean shift algorithm Initially we segment the image by mean shift algorithm. It is a low level segmentation method. We have various low level segmenting methods such as Watershed, Level set, Super-pixel and Mean shift. All the low level algorithms may have severe over segmentation. But mean shift algorithm has less over segmentation due to which statistic features of each region can be more robustly calculated. After mean shift initial segmentation, we have many small regions available. We need to represent these regions using some descriptor and define a rule for merging. A region can be described: Color Edge Texture Shape and Size Using the RGB color space to compute the color histogram, feature descriptor. Uniformly quantize each color channel into 16 levels. The histogram of each region is 16*16*16=4096 bins. 2.2 Similarity Measure Use the Bhattacharyya coefficient to measure the similarity between R and Q . (R,Q ) H is t H is t Similarity measure: H ist AndH i s t are the normalized histograms of R and Q .Bhattacharyya coefficient is the cosine of the 0 9 6 ,H is t 4 H i s t 1R , angle between the unitR vectors and . The higher the Bhattacharyya coefficient between R and Q is, the higher the similarity between them. After object marking, each region will be labeled as the marker object region (MO), the marker background region (MB) , The non-marker region (N). Histogram is a global descriptor
4096 u 1 u u R Q
u u Q Q
T

Keywords: Interactive image segmentation, Mean shift algorithm, Bhattacharyya coefficient, Dynamic region merging, Maximal similarity, Graph Cut Algorithm.

1. INTRODUCTION
The process of assigning label to every pixel in an image and partitioning of an image into non-overlapping regions is called image segmentation. It basically helps in identification of objects in an image. Most of the image segmentation techniques all can be placed in the following main categories. 1. Characteristic feature thresholding or clustering (Feature Domain) 2. Boundary detection (Spatial Domain) 3. Region growing (Spatial Domain) All the categories stated above have some limitations. Characteristic feature thresholding or clustering does not take spatial information into consideration. Boundary detection is effective only for simple and noise free images, as it produces extra edges or missing edges for noisy images. Region growing is difficult to identify as to when region merging process should be terminated which causes under or over segmentation. As all the methods in each of the three categories have their own limitations. Hence by applying the two methods hierarchically, it is hoped that the hybrid method will improve on segmentation. In this paper we investigated on combining Clustering and Region Merging. Existing Volume 2, Issue 3 May June 2013

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Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org, editorijettcs@gmail.com Volume 2, Issue 3, May June 2013 ISSN 2278-6856
of local region and is robust to noise and small variation. Bhattacharyya coefficient is inner product of the two histogram vectors, hence it is also robust. Step 1.2: For each Ai and Ai MB, form its set of A S ji adjacent regions S A i . There is B S Ai. i 1, 2 , , k
Ai , B max A i , S j i . If Step 1.3: Calculate j 1,2, , k then B = B Ai. Otherwise, B and Ai will not merge.
A

Ai , S j i

3. SIMILARITY REGION MERGING M ETHOD

The proposed region merging method starts from the initial marker regions and all the non-marker regions will be gradually labeled as either object region or background region. Merging rule by Maximal similarity: Q m ax Q , S i . Merge R and Q if : R , Q i 1,2 , , q Figure 4 Selecting the region to merge Step 1.4: Update MB and N accordingly. Step 1.5: If the regions in MB will not find new merging regions, the first stage ends. Otherwise, go back to Step 1.1. Algorithm for Step Two:

Figure 1 Selecting Region with maximal similarity Algorithm for Step One:

Figure 2 Merging non-marker regions (N) with marker background regions (MB). Step 1.1: For each region B MB, form the set of its adjacent regions S B Ai i 1,2, , r .

Figure adaptively

Merging

non-marker

regions

(N)

Step 2.1: For each region P adjacent regions S P Hi i

H is t1 Q ,

N, form the set of its

.
T

1, 2 , , p 4096 , H is t Q
H S j i

Step 2.2: For each Hi that Hi S H i its set of adjacent regions Fif Figure 3 Merging non-marked regions with background Volume 2, Issue 3 May June 2013

MB and Hi
i 1, 2 , ,k

MO, form .
H i, S j
Hi

P, H i max H Step 2.3: Calculate H i , S j i . If j 1,2, , k then P = P Hi . Otherwise, P and Hi will not merge.

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Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org, editorijettcs@gmail.com Volume 2, Issue 3, May June 2013 ISSN 2278-6856

Step 2.4: Update N. Step 2.5: If the regions in N will not find new merging regions, the second stage ends. Otherwise, go back to Step 2.1.

4. COMPARISON
The proposed algorithm has various advantages. In this no presetting of similarity threshold for merging control is required. Big threshold leads to incomplete merging of the regions belonging to the object. Small threshold can cause over merging i.e some object regions are merged into background. So these drawbacks have been overpowered by this algorithm. 4.1 Comparison with Graph cuts: The similarity region merging method is better than graph cuts as graph cuts on pixel color features do not always perform well, especially on textured objects. Secondly, this algorithm also avoids expensive global optimization done in graph cuts. And the results obtained by similarity region merging method are way faster than graph cuts. 4.2 Comparison with Dynamic Region Merging: The similarity region merging method is better than dynamic region merging method as the time taken is comparatively less. In similarity region merging at each step we are able to see how the segments in the image are getting merged. Dynamic region merging is a slow process and the results obtained with it are also not very consistent. Figure 7 Time taken by Dynamic Region Merging and Similarity Region Merging for different images 4.2.1 Table Table 1: Running Time of Different Images with Similarity Region Merging Image Bird Mona Lisa 376x42 5 522 Starfish Dog

Size of Image

163x19 2 170

448x36 8 1088

335x29 5 192

Number of Regions after Initial Segmentation . Running time with Dynamic Region Merging (s) Running Time with Similarity Region Merging (s)

40

114

20

32

80

12

5. IMAGES
Here are some of the images on which Similarity Region Merging method was applied and the results obtained were better than all the existing algorithms. The proposed method is compared to Graph Cut algorithm and Dynamic region merging algorithm. The results of the experiments show that the proposed method is better in terms of time taken and the quality of the results. Page 16

Figure 6 Comparison between various algorithms, 1stcolumn with initial segmentation and input markers 2nd column with Graph Cut results 3rd column with Dynamic Region Merging results 4th column with results by the proposed method of Similarity Region Merging. Volume 2, Issue 3 May June 2013

Web Site: www.ijettcs.org Email: editor@ijettcs.org, editorijettcs@gmail.com Volume 2, Issue 3, May June 2013 ISSN 2278-6856 References
[1] Mo Chen, Yongbo Hou, Xianghui Zeng, Yinan Lu (2011). A multi-label interactive image segmentation method based on region merging 978-1-61284-722-1/11/$26.00 2011 IEEE. [2] Turi, R. and Ray, S. (1998). K-means clustering for colour image segmentation with automatic detection of k, Proceedings of International Conference on Signal and image Processing, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA, pp. 345-349. [3] Trivedi, M. and Bezdek, J. (1986). Low-level segmentation of aerial images with fuzzy clustering, IEEE Trans. Syst., Man, Cybern vol.16(4): 589-589. [4] N.R.Pal and S.K.Pal (1993). A review on image segmentation techniques, Pattern Recognition vol.26(9): 1277-1290. [5] Jifeng Ning LeiZhang, DavidZhang, ChengkeWu (2009). Pattern Recognition 43 (2010) 445 456. [6] Davis, D. and D.W.Bouldin (1979). A cluster separation measure, IEEE Trans. On Patter Analysis and Machine Intelligence vol.1(4): 224227.

Figure 7 Step by step implementation with the final result in last image.

AUTHOR
Ms. Arushi Chhabra is a B-Tech. final year Computer Science student at VIT University, Tamilnadu. Her areas of interest are Image Processing, Soft Computing and Compter Architecture. She is having a job offer from Accenture. She is further planning to do her M.S. from California State University, Sacramento in Computer Engineering. Mr. Ankit Gupta is a B-Tech. final year student in Computer Science at VIT University, Tamilnadu. His areas of interest are Image Processing, Operating Systems and Computer Architecture. He is having an offer for job from IBM. He is further planning to do his M.S. from California State University, Sacramento in Computer Engineering.
Ms. Akila Victor received her MSc software Engineering degree in 2008 from Anna University Chennai and is also a university Rank holder and M.E. degree in Computer Science and Engineering in 2010 from Anna University Tirunelveli, Tirunelveli, India. Presently working as an Asst.Prof in VIT University, Vellore.Her areas of interest are Image Processing, Cryptography and Software Engineering. She has presented papers in national and International Conferences in various fields.

Figure 8 Implementation of algorithm on the image of tiger.

6. CONCLUSION
This paper proposed a user interactive image segmentation method. The image is initially segmented by mean shift segmentation and the user needs to roughly indicate the object and background using marker. Now with the similarity based merging rule, the object is clearly distinguished from the background. Several experiments were conducted to validate the proposed method in extracting single and multiple objects in complex scenes. The proposed method is then compared to Graph Cut algorithm and Dynamic region merging algorithm. The results of the experiments show that the proposed method is better in terms of time taken and the quality of the results. Volume 2, Issue 3 May June 2013

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