UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT, KOLKATA

Course Name : Digital Image Processing

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 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING & MANAGEMENT, KOLKATA
Chapter 10: Image Segmentation

Image Segmentation
 Segmentation attempts to partition the pixels of an
image into groups that strongly correlate with the
objects in an image
 Typically the first step in any automated computer
vision application

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Image Segmentation
• Segmentation algorithms generally are based on one
of two basis properties of intensity values
• Discontinuity: to partition an image based on
abrupt changes in intensity (such as edges)

• Similarity: to partition an image into regions that

are similar according to a set of predefined
criteria.

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Image Segmentation
 Image Segmentation

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Image Segmentation
 Image Segmentation

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Image Segmentation
 Detection of discontinuities:
 There are three basic types of gray-level
discontinuities:
 points , lines , edges

 the common way is to run a mask through

the image

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Point Detection:
• Note that the mark is the same as the mask of
Laplacian Operation (in chapter 3)

• The only differences that are considered of

interest are those large enough (as determined
by T) to be considered isolated points.

|R| >T
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Point Detection:

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Line Detection

R1 R2 R3 R4

• Horizontal mask will result with max response when a line passed
through the middle row of the mask with a constant background.
• the similar idea is used with other masks.
• note: the preferred direction of each mask is weighted with
a larger coefficient (i.e.,2) than other possible directions.
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Line Detection
• Apply every masks on the image
• let R1, R2, R3, R4 denotes the response of the
horizontal, +45 degree, vertical and -45 degree
masks, respectively.
• if, at a certain point in the image
|Ri| > |Rj|, for all j≠i,
• that point is said to be more likely associated
with a line in the direction of mask i.
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Line Detection
• Alternatively, if we are interested in detecting all lines in
an image in the direction defined by a given mask, we
simply run the mask through the image and threshold
the absolute value of the result.
• The points that are left are the strongest responses,
which, for lines one pixel thick, correspond closest to
the direction defined by the mask.

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Line Detection

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Edge Detection Approach

 Segmentation by finding pixels on a region
boundary.

 Edges found by looking at neighboring pixels.

 Region boundary formed by measuring gray

value differences between neighboring pixels

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Edge Detection

• an edge is a set of connected pixels that

lie on the boundary between two regions.

• an edge is a “local” concept whereas a

region boundary, owing to the way it is
defined, is a more global idea.
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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection
 Detection of discontinuities: Image Derivatives

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Edge Detection
• First column: images and gray- level profiles
of a ramp edge corrupted by random
Gaussian noise of mean 0 and = 0.0, 0.1,
1.0 and 10.0, respectively.
• Second column: first-derivative
images and gray-level profiles.
• Third column : second- derivative images and
gray- level profiles.

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Edge Detection
 Gradient Operator
 f 
Gx   x 
f      f 
G y   
y 

f  G  G 2
x y
2 1/ 2

for 3 3 mask
Gx  (z7  z8  z9 )  (z1  z2  z3 )
Gy  (z3  z6  z9 )  (z1  z4  z7 )
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Edge Detection
 Prewitt and Sobel Operators

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection
 The Laplacian

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Edge Detection

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Edge Detection
 The Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG)

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Edge Detection
 The Laplacian of Gaussian (LoG)

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The Hough Transform

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The Hough Transform

 Global processing: The Hough Transform

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The Hough Transform

 Global processing: The Hough Transform

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The Hough Transform

 Global processing: The Hough Transform

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What is a Region?
 Basic definition :- A group of connected
pixels with similar properties.

 Important in interpreting an image because

they may correspond to objects in a scene.
 For that an image must be partitioned into
regions that correspond to objects or parts of
an object.
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Region-Based vs. Edge-Based

Region-Based Edge-Based

 Closed boundaries  Boundaries formed

not necessarily
closed
 Multi-spectral  No significant
images improve improvement for
segmentation multi-spectral images
 Computation based  Computation based
on similarity on difference 35
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Image Thresholding

•What is thresholding?
•Simple thresholding
•Adaptive thresholding

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Thresholding – A Key Aspect

 Most algorithms involve establishing a

threshold level of certain parameter.
 Correct thresholding leads to better
segmentation.
 Using samples of image intensity available,
appropriate threshold should be set
automatically in a robust algorithm i.e. no
hard-wiring of gray values
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Automatic Thresholding
 Use of one or more of the following:-
1. Intensity characteristics of objects
2. Sizes of objects
3. Fractions of image occupied by objects
4. Number of different types of objects
 Size and probability of occurrence – most popular
 Intensity distributions estimate by histogram
computation.

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Automatic Thresholding Methods

 Some automatic thresholding schemes:

1. P-tile method
2. Iterative threshold selection
3. Adaptive thresholding

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Thresholding Methods
 P-tile Method:- If object
occupies P% of image pixels
then set a threshold T such
that P% of pixels have
intensity below T.

 Iterative Thresholding:-
Successively refines an
T  12
approx. threshold to get a 1
new value which partitions 2
the image better. 40
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P-Tile Thresholding
• Thresholding is usually the first
step in any segmentation approach
• Single value thresholding can be
given mathematically as follows:
1 if f (x, y)  T
g(x, y)  
0 if f (x, y)  T 41
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P-Tile Thresholding

• Basic global thresholding:

• Based on the histogram of an image Partition
the image histogram using a single global
threshold

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P-Tile Thresholding

• Basic global thresholding:

• The success of this technique very strongly
depends on how well the histogram can be
partitioned

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Iterative P-Tile Thresholding

• The Basic global thresholding:

1. Select an initial estimate for T (typically the
average grey level in the image)
2. Segment the image using T to produce two groups
of pixels: G1 consisting of pixels with grey levels >T
and G2 consisting pixels with grey levels ≤ T
3. Compute the average grey levels of pixels in G1 to
give μ1 and G2 to give μ2

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Iterative P-Tile Thresholding

• The Basic global thresholding:

4. Compute a new threshold value:
1  2
T
2
5. Repeat steps 2 – 4 until the difference in T in
successive iterations is less than a predefined limit
T∞
This algorithm works very well for finding thresholds when
the histogram is suitable. 45
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P-Tile Thresholding

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P-Tile Thresholding

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P-Tile Thresholding
• Limitation of P-Tile thresholding:

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P-Tile Thresholding
• Limitation of P-Tile thresholding:

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P-Tile Thresholding
• Limitation of P-Tile thresholding:

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Adaptive Thresholding is used in scenes with
uneven illumination where same threshold
value not usable throughout complete image.
 In such case, look at small regions in the
image and obtain thresholds for individual
sub-images. Final segmentation is the union
of the regions of sub-images.

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Thresholding – Basic Adaptive Thresholding

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Thresholding – Basic Adaptive Thresholding

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Thresholding – Basic Adaptive Thresholding

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Thresholding – Basic Adaptive Thresholding

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Adaptive Thresholding
 Thresholding – Basic Adaptive Thresholding

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Summary
 Segmentation is the most essential step
in most scene analysis and automatic
pictorial pattern recognition problems.

 Choice of the technique depends on the

peculiar characteristics of individual
problem in hand.
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Thank You

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