Bubble delineation on valley edge detection and region merge

This paper propose an image segmentation algorithm for mineral froth images, based on multi-scale analysis, valley edge detection, edge thinning, end point detection and linking, and region merge on shape. The algorithm was tested for a number of different froth images and was compared to the watershed, similarity based and Canny operator based algorithms. The testing results show that the similarity or edge based algorithms cannot segment froth images well, and the watershed algorithm often causes over-segmentation, especially for the images of relative large bubbles. The accuracy and processing speed of the studied algorithm are better than that of the watershed algorithm. The test results show that the algorithm performs satisfactorily.