A new image segmentation framework based on two-dimensional hidden Markov models

Image segmentation is one of the fundamental problems in computer vision. In this work, we present a new segmentation algorithm that is based on the theory of two-dimensional hidden Markov models (2D-HMM). Unlike most 2D-HMM approaches we do not apply the Viterbi algorithm; instead we present a comp...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autores: Baumgartner, Josef Sylvester, Flesia, Ana Georgina, Gimenez Romero, Javier Alejandro, Pucheta, Julián Antonio
Tipo de documento: artigo
Estado:Versão publicada
Data de publicação:2015
País:Argentina
Recursos:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas
Repositório:CONICET Digital (CONICET)
Idioma:inglês
OAI Identifier:oai:ri.conicet.gov.ar:11336/58360
Acesso em linha:http://hdl.handle.net/11336/58360
Access Level:Acceso aberto
Palavra-chave:Hidden Markov Models
Image Segmentation
Kappa Coefficient
Probability Density Function
Viterbi Training
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1.1
https://purl.org/becyt/ford/1
Descrição
Resumo:Image segmentation is one of the fundamental problems in computer vision. In this work, we present a new segmentation algorithm that is based on the theory of two-dimensional hidden Markov models (2D-HMM). Unlike most 2D-HMM approaches we do not apply the Viterbi algorithm; instead we present a computationally efficient algorithm that propagates the state probabilities through the image. Our algorithm, called Complete Enumeration Iteration (CEP), is flexible in the sense that it allows the use of different probability distributions as emibion probabilities. Not only do we compare the performance of different probability functions plugged into our framework but also propose three methods to update the distributions of each state "online" during the segmentation proceb. We compare our algorithm with a 2D-HMM standard algorithm and Iterated Conditional Modes (ICM) using real world images like a radiography or a satellite image as well as synthetic images. The experimental results are evaluated by the kappa coefficient (κ). In those cases where the average κ coefficient is higher than 0.7 we observe an average relative improvement of 8% of CEP with respect to the benchmark algorithms. For all other segmentation tasks CEP shows no significant improvement. Besides that, we demonstrate how the choice of the emibion probability can have great influence on the segmentation results. Surprisingly, we observe that the normal distribution is an appropriate density function for many segmentation tasks.