1. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 1 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation

2. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 2 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Detection of discontinuities Points Lines Edges

3. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 3 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation

4. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 4 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Detection of discontinuities Z i corresponding pixel values

5. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 5 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Point detection

6. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 6 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Line detection

7. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 7 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Line detection

8. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 8 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

9. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 9 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

10. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 10 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

11. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 11 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

12. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 12 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Gradient operators Magnitude of the gradient Direction of the gradient vector

13. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 13 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

14. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 14 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection GyGy GxGx

15. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 15 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection GyGy GxGx

16. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 16 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

17. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 17 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

18. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 18 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

19. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 19 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

20. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 20 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Laplacian Laplacian of a 2d function f(x,y) is a 2 nd order derivative defined as Masks used to compute Laplacian

21. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 21 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Laplacian of gaussian (LoG) Because these kernels are approximating a second derivative measurement on the image, they are very sensitive to noise. To counter this, the image is often Gaussian smoothed before applying the Laplacian filter. This pre-processing step reduces the high frequency noise components prior to the differentiation step. In fact, since the convolution operation is associative, we can convolve the Gaussian smoothing filter with the Laplacian filter first, and then convolve this hybrid filter with the image to achieve the required result. Doing things this way has two advantages: Since both the Gaussian and the Laplacian kernels are usually much smaller than the image, this method usually requires far fewer arithmetic operations. The LoG (`Laplacian of Gaussian') kernel can be precalculated in advance so only one convolution needs to be performed at run-time on the image.

22. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 22 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection

23. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 23 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Zero Crossing Detector (http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/zeros.htm) The zero crossing detector looks for places in the Laplacian of an image where the value of the Laplacian passes through zero - i.e. points where the Laplacian changes sign. Such points often occur at `edges' in images - i.e. points where the intensity of the image changes rapidly, but they also occur at places that are not as easy to associate with edges. It is best to think of the zero crossing detector as some sort of feature detector rather than as a specific edge detector.

24. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 24 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Zero Crossing Detector The core of the zero crossing detector is the Laplacian of Gaussian filter, `edges' in images give rise to zero crossings in the LoG output.

25. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 25 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Zero Crossing Detector Response of 1-D LoG filter to a step edge. The left hand graph shows a 1-D image, 200 pixels long, containing a step edge. The right hand graph shows the response of a 1-D LoG filter with Gaussian standard deviation 3 pixels.

26. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 26 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Zero Crossing Detector Response of 1-D LoG filter to a step edge. The left hand graph shows a 1-D image, 200 pixels long, containing a step edge. The right hand graph shows the response of a 1-D LoG filter with Gaussian standard deviation 3 pixels.

27. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 27 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Zero Crossing Detector

28. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 28 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Edge detection Canny Edge Detector (http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/canny.htm) The Canny operator works in a multi-stage process. First of all the image is smoothed by Gaussian convolution. Then a simple 2-D first derivative operator (somewhat like the Roberts Cross) is applied to the smoothed image to highlight regions of the image with high first spatial derivatives. Edges give rise to ridges in the gradient magnitude image. The algorithm then tracks along the top of these ridges and sets to zero all pixels that are not actually on the ridge top so as to give a thin line in the output, a process known as non-maximal suppression. The tracking process exhibits hysteresis controlled by two thresholds: T1 and T2, with T1 > T2. Tracking can only begin at a point on a ridge higher than T1. Tracking then continues in both directions out from that point until the height of the ridge falls below T2. This hysteresis helps to ensure that noisy edges are not broken up into multiple edge fragments.

29. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 29 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Segmentation Region-based segmentation methods attempt to partition or group regions according to common image properties. These image properties consist of 1.Intensity values from original images, or computed values based on an image operator 2.Textures or patterns that are unique to each type of region 3.Spectral profiles that provide multidimensional image data Elaborate systems may use a combination of these properties to segment images, while simpler systems may be restricted to a minimal set on properties depending of the type of data available.

30. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 30 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Segmentation Thresholding

31. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 31 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Segmentation Thresholding

32. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 32 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Splitting and Merging The basic idea of region splitting is to break the image into a set of disjoint regions which are coherent within themselves: Initially take the image as a whole to be the area of interest. Look at the area of interest and decide if all pixels contained in the region satisfy some similarity constraint. If TRUE then the area of interest corresponds to a region in the image. If FALSE split the area of interest (usually into four equal sub-areas) and consider each of the sub areas as the area of interest in turn. This process continues until no further splitting occurs. In the worst case this happens when the areas are just one pixel in size. This is a divide and conquer or top down method. If only a splitting schedule is used then the final segmentation would probably contain many neighbouring regions that have identical or similar properties. Thus, a merging process is used after each split which compares adjacent regions and merges them if necessary. Algorithms of this nature are called split and merge algorithms.

33. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 33 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Splitting and Merging

34. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 34 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Splitting and Merging

35. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 35 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Growing Region growing approach is the opposite of the split and merge approach: An initial set of small areas are iteratively merged according to similarity constraints. Start by choosing an arbitrary seed pixel and compare it with neighbouring pixels. Region is grown from the seed pixel by adding in neighbouring pixels that are similar, increasing the size of the region. When the growth of one region stops we simply choose another seed pixel which does not yet belong to any region and start again. This whole process is continued until all pixels belong to some region. A bottom up method.

36. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 36 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Growing

37. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 37 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Growing However starting with a particular seed pixel and letting this region grow completely before trying other seeds biases the segmentation in favour of the regions which are segmented first. This can have several undesirable effects: Current region dominates the growth process -- ambiguities around edges of adjacent regions may not be resolved correctly. Different choices of seeds may give different segmentation results. Problems can occur if the (arbitrarily chosen) seed point lies on an edge.

38. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 38 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Growing To counter the above problems, simultaneous region growing techniques have been developed. Similarities of neighbouring regions are taken into account in the growing process. No single region is allowed to completely dominate the proceedings. A number of regions are allowed to grow at the same time. similar regions will gradually coalesce into expanding regions. Control of these methods may be quite complicated but efficient methods have been developed. Easy and efficient to implement on parallel computers.

39. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 39 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Region Growing To counter the above problems, simultaneous region growing techniques have been developed. Similarities of neighbouring regions are taken into account in the growing process. No single region is allowed to completely dominate the proceedings. A number of regions are allowed to grow at the same time. similar regions will gradually coalesce into expanding regions. Control of these methods may be quite complicated but efficient methods have been developed. Easy and efficient to implement on parallel computers.

40. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 40 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Advanced Image Segmentation Methods Segment the foreground objects

41. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 41 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Advanced Image Segmentation Methods

42. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 42 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Advanced Image Segmentation Image editing (synthesis/composition)

43. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 43 Edge Detection and Image Segmentation Connected Components Labeling (http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/label.htm)

44. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 44 Identify Individual Object Connected Component Labeling: Give pixels belonging to the same object the same label (grey level or color)

45. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 45 Identify Individual Object Connected component labelling works by scanning an image, pixel-by-pixel (from top to bottom and left to right) in order to identify connected pixel regions, i.e. regions of adjacent pixels which share the same set of intensity values.

46. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 46 Identify Individual Object Connected Pixels Two pixels p and q are said to be connected if there is a sequence of foreground (1) pixels Such that

47. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 47 Identify Individual Object Pixel Neighbors 010 1p1 010 Four nearest neighbors 111 1p1 111 Eight nearest neighbors

48. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 48 Identify Individual Object 4- and 8-Connected Pixels When only the four nearest neighbors are considered part of the neighborhood, then pixels p and q are said to be “4- connected” When the 8 nearest neighbors are considered part of the neighborhood, then pixels p and q are said to be “8- connected” 4-connected 8-connected

49. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 49 Labelling Algorithm The connected components labeling operator scans the image by moving along a row until it comes to a point p (where p denotes the pixel to be labeled at any stage in the scanning process) for which V={1}. When this is true, it examines the four neighbors of p which have already been encountered in the scan (in the case of 8-connectivity, the neighbors (i) to the left of p, (ii) above it, and (iii and iv) the two upper diagonal terms). Based on this information, the labeling of p occurs as follows: If all four neighbors are 0, assign a new label to p, else if only one neighbor has V={1}, assign its label to p, else if more than one of the neighbors have V={1}, assign one of the labels to p and make a note of the equivalences. After completing the scan, the equivalent label pairs are sorted into equivalence classes and a unique label is assigned to each class. As a final step, a second scan is made through the image, during which each label is replaced by the label assigned to its equivalence classes. For display, the labels might be different graylevels or colors.

50. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 50 Labelling Algorithm Example (8-connectivity) 1111 11 11 11 1 111 1122 11 11 31 3 333 Equivalent labels {1, 2} Original Binary ImageAfter first scan

51. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 51 Labelling Algorithm Example (8-connectivity) 1122 11 11 31 3 333 Equivalent labels {1, 2} After 1 st scan 1111 11 11 21 2 222 Final label 1: {1, 2} 2: {3} After 2 nd scan (two individual objects/regions have been identified)

52. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 52 Describe Objects Some useful features can be extracted once we have connected components, including Area Centroid Extremal points, bounding box Circularity Spatial moments

53. G52IIP, School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham 53 Describe Objects Area Centroid