Color image segmentation using connected regions

TitleColor image segmentation using connected regions
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2003
AuthorsWesolkowski, S., and P. Fieguth
Conference Name16th Canadian Conference on Electrical and Computer Engineering
Keywordscolor image segmentation, color similarity measure, connected region, highlight invariance, highlight removal transformation, image colour analysis, image segmentation, pixel intensity, real image, realistic images, RGB coordinate, shading invariance, vector angle
Abstract

A color image segmentation algorithm based on region growing is presented. Each region is characterized using two parameters: within region color contrast and between region color contrast. The first parameter is the distance between the two most distant pixels in terms of color. The second parameter is the distance between the candidate pixel and its nearest neighbor in the region. The color similarity measure used is the vector angle, which is invariant to shading. Highlight invariance is accomplished by using a highlight removal transformation, which removes the average pixel intensity from each RGB coordinate. The first calculation is very computationally intensive. To reduce this computational burden, the algorithm keeps track of which pixels already in the region are furthest spatially from the pixel being considered. The assumption would be that the pixels the furthest away would be the ones most different from the pixel being considered. We will present results on artificial and real images to illustrate the effectiveness of the method.

DOI10.1109/CCECE.2003.1226114