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Image segmentation by level set evolution with region consistency constraint

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Abstract

Image segmentation is a key and fundamental problem in image processing, computer graphics, and computer vision. Level set based method for image segmentation is used widely for its topology flexibility and proper mathematical formulation. However, poor performance of existing level set models on noisy images and weak boundary limit its application in image segmentation. In this paper, we present a region consistency constraint term to measure the regional consistency on both sides of the boundary, this term defines the boundary of the image within a range, and hence increases the stability of the level set model. The term can make existing level set models significantly improve the efficiency of the algorithms on segmenting images with noise and weak boundary. Furthermore, this constraint term can make edge-based level set model overcome the defect of sensitivity to the initial contour. The experimental results show that our algorithm is efficient for image segmentation and outperform the existing state-of-art methods regarding images with noise and weak boundary.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University, Jinan, 250101, China

    Li Zhong, Yuan-feng Zhou & Cai-ming Zhang

  2. School of Information and Electrical Engineering, Ludong University, Yantai, 264025, China

    Li Zhong, Xiao-feng Zhang & Cai-ming Zhang

  3. School of Computer Science and Technology, Shandong University of Finance and Economics, Jinan, 250014, China

    Qiang Guo & Cai-ming Zhang

Authors
  1. Li Zhong
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  2. Yuan-feng Zhou
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  3. Xiao-feng Zhang
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  4. Qiang Guo
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  5. Cai-ming Zhang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Cai-ming Zhang.

Additional information

This work was supported in part by the NSFC-Zhejiang Joint Fund of the Integration of Informatization and Industrialization (U1609218), NSFC(61772312, 61373078, 61772253), the Key Research and Development Project of Shandong Province (2017GGX10110), NSF of Shandong Province (ZR2016FM21, ZR2016FM13).

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Zhong, L., Zhou, Yf., Zhang, Xf. et al. Image segmentation by level set evolution with region consistency constraint. Appl. Math. J. Chin. Univ. 32, 422–442 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11766-017-3534-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11766-017-3534-0

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