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Maximum likelihood unsupervised textured image segmentation
Journal article

Maximum likelihood unsupervised textured image segmentation

Fernand S Cohen and Zhigang Fan
CVGIP. Graphical models and image processing, v 54(3)
1992

Abstract

This paper presents an algorithm for segmenting an image that is composed of an unknown number of regions c. In each region n, the image data g n are viewed as a realization from a homogeneous parametric random field with a class conditional density function p(g n | γ n ), where γ n is an unknown parameter set. The number of regions c and the segmentation S c are treated as unknown constants that are estimated using the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation principle. The ML estimates for c and S c are obtained by maximizing log{ p(g|S c)} over all possible c and S c . p(g|S c) has the desirable property of unbiasedness; i.e., E S ctrue {log{ p(g|S c )}} ≤ E S ctrue {log{ p(g|S ctrue )}. Unfortunately, it suffers from two limitations: (i) a closed-form analytic expression for p(g|S c ) for a given fixed c cannot be obtained in general, and (ii) in order to arrive at the optimum ( c ∗, S c ∗ ) we must evaluate p(g|S c) for all possible c and S c , a most formidable task. This paper presents a solution to both problems that results into an optimum number of classes c ∗ ; an “optimum” window-based coarse segmentation S c ∗ of the image; and a ML estimate of the parameters Γ S ∗c ∗ = (γ 1, γ 2, …, γ c ∗ ) of the c ∗ regions induced by S c ∗ . From this knowledge, the mixed windows (windows that fall between regions) are segmented further in a supervised mode (known parameter case) using the ML high-resolution segmentation developed by Cohen and Cooper ( IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intelligence Mar., 1987). The ML algorithm is applied to the problem of unsupervised segmentation of textured images of natural outdoor scenes.

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Computer Science, Software Engineering
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