Spatial and Feature Space Clustering: Applications in Image Analysis

We propose a novel approach to image segmentation, called feature and spatial domain clustering. The method is devised to group pixel data by taking into account simultaneously both their feature space similarity and spatial coherence. The FSD algorithm is practically application independent. It has been successfully tested on a wide range of image segmentation problems, including grey and colour image segmentation, edge and line detection, range data and motion segmentation. In comparison with existing segmentation approaches, the method can resolve image features even if their distributions significantly overlap in the feature space. It can distinguish between noisy regions and genuine fine texture. Moreover, if required, FSD clustering can produce partial segmentation by identifying salient regions only.

[1]  J. Kittler,et al.  Robust motion analysis , 1994, 1994 Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition.

[2]  Josef Kittler,et al.  Optimal Edge Detectors for Ramp Edges , 1991, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell..

[3]  Jiri Matas,et al.  Illumination Invariant Colour Recognition , 1994, BMVC.

[4]  Jiri Matas,et al.  On representation and matching of multi-coloured objects , 1995, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision.

[5]  Maria Petrou,et al.  The Differentiating Filter Approach to Edge Detection , 1994 .

[6]  Luc Cournoyer,et al.  The NRCC three-dimensional image data files , 1988 .

[7]  Keinosuke Fukunaga,et al.  Introduction to Statistical Pattern Recognition , 1972 .

[8]  John Princen Hough Transform Methods for Curve Detection and Parameter Estimation , 1990 .

[9]  Dana H. Ballard,et al.  Parameter Nets , 1984, Artif. Intell..

[10]  Josef Kittler,et al.  A locally sensitive method for cluster analysis , 1976, Pattern Recognit..

[11]  John A. Richards,et al.  Remote Sensing Digital Image Analysis , 1986 .

[12]  P. Gács,et al.  Algorithms , 1992 .

[13]  Keinosuke Fukunaga,et al.  A Graph-Theoretic Approach to Nonparametric Cluster Analysis , 1976, IEEE Transactions on Computers.

[14]  Anil K. Jain,et al.  Algorithms for Clustering Data , 1988 .

[15]  Alireza Khotanzad,et al.  Image segmentation by a parallel, non-parametric histogram based clustering algorithm , 1990, Pattern Recognit..

[16]  Miroslaw Zbigniew. Bober General motion estimation and segmentation from image sequences , 1994 .