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A colour image segmentation method and its application to medical images

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose a segmentation model using an anisotropic multi-well potential-based nonlinear transient PDE for colour images. A channel-wise greyscale classification approach is devised for colour image segmentation. The time evolution of the PDE model is carried out by the implicit–explicit convexity splitting approach. Further, we consider the fractional version of the time-discretised model by replacing the Laplacian with its fractional counterpart. The spatial terms are approximated by the Fourier basis under the pseudo-spectral method. The convergence and the stability of the numerical scheme are elaborated. Both models (fractional and non-fractional) are tested on some synthetic images and few real-world standard test images. The results on synthetic images are compared with those from the literature using Dice similarity index, Jaccard similarity index and BF score. Later the method is successfully applied on several medical images to classify the same.

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Availability of data and materials

Most of the test images we have used are available in public domain. The medical images will be made available on request.

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Funding

The authors acknowledge the funding received under the SPARC project MHRD/SPARC/2018-2019/7/SL(IN) of MHRD and MATRICS project no. Mtr/2018/000899, SERB, Govt. of India.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. King Abdullah University of Science and Technology, Thuwal, Saudi Arabia

    Abdul Halim

  2. Department of Mathematics, Hari Singh College, Munger, Bihar, 811213, India

    Abdul Halim

  3. Department of Mathematics and Statistics, IIT Kanpur, Kanpur, 208016, India

    B. V. Rathish Kumar

  4. School of Medicine Neurological Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Ajay Niranjan

  5. School of Computing and Electrical Engineering, IIT Mandi, Mandi, India

    Aditya Nigam

  6. Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Walter Schneider & Sudhir K. Pathak

  7. Department of Radio Diagnosis and Imaging, PGIMER Chandigarh, Chandigarh, India

    Chirag K. Ahuja

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  1. Abdul Halim
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  2. B. V. Rathish Kumar
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  3. Ajay Niranjan
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  4. Aditya Nigam
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  5. Walter Schneider
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  6. Chirag K. Ahuja
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  7. Sudhir K. Pathak
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Contributions

All the authors are involved in the project mentioned in the funding details. The first author, AH, prepared the initial draft of the manuscript, and then, it was corrected and modified by the authors BVRK, SKP and AN. The medical images are provided, and results were interpreted by WS, CKA, AN, SKP and BVRK. All authors reviewed the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to B. V. Rathish Kumar.

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We declare that the authors have no competing interests as defined by Springer, or other interests that might be perceived to influence the results and/or discussion reported in this paper.

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Halim, A., Kumar, B.V.R., Niranjan, A. et al. A colour image segmentation method and its application to medical images. SIViP 18, 1635–1648 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-023-02817-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-023-02817-3

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