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An automatic initialization of interactive segmentation methods using shortest path basins

  • Representation, Processing, Analysis and Understanding of Images
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Abstract

Image segmentation is one of many fundamental problems in computer vision. The need to divide an image to a number of classes is often a part of a system that uses image processing methods. Therefore, lots of methods were developed that are based on different approaches. The image segmentation could be classified with respect to many criteria. One such a criterion is based on the degree of allowed interactivity. The interactivity could be of several types—interactive initialization, interaction while the computation is running or manual refinement of achieved results, for example. Especially the precise initialization plays an important role in many methods. Therefore the possibility to initialize the method manually is often invaluable advantage and information obtained this way could be the difference between good and poor results. Unfortunately, in many cases it is not possible to initialize a method manually and the process needs to be automated. In this paper, an approach for such an automation is presented. It is based on shortest paths in a graph and deriving an area of influence for each obtained seed point. This method is called shortest path basins.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. New Technologies for the Information Society, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia, Technicka 8, 306 14, Pilsen, Czech Republic

    T. Ryba & M. Zelezny

  2. Department of Cybernetics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of West Bohemia, Technicka 8, 306 14, Pilsen, Czech Republic

    M. Zelezny

Authors
  1. T. Ryba
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  2. M. Zelezny
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Correspondence to T. Ryba.

Additional information

The article is published in the original.

This paper uses the materials of the report submitted at the 9th Open German-Russian Workshop on Pattern Recognition and Image Understanding, held on Koblenz, December 1–5, 2014 (OGRW-9-2014).

Tomas Ryba was born in 1985 in Plzen, Czech Republic. He received his M.S. degree in Cybernetics from the University of West Bohemia (UWB), Plzen, Czech Republic in 2009. As a Ph.D. candidate at the Department of Cybernetics, UWB, his research interests focus on medical imaging and image segmentation. He is also a teaching assistant at UWB.

Milos Zelezny was born in Plzen, Czech Republic, in 1971. He received his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Cybernetics from the University of West Bohemia, Plzen, Czech Republic (UWB) in 1994 and in 2002 respectively. Since 2012 he is an associate professor at the UWB. He has been delivering lectures on Digital Image Processing, Structural Pattern Recognition and Remote Sensing since 1996. He is working in projects on multi modal humen-computer speech interfaces and computer vision.

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Ryba, T., Zelezny, M. An automatic initialization of interactive segmentation methods using shortest path basins. Pattern Recognit. Image Anal. 26, 336–342 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1054661816020188

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