International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882

Volume 3, Issue 5, August 2014

PERCEPTIBLE PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT CLUSTERING

TECHNIQUES FOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION
Jadhav Swapnil N. 1, Prof. Sarita V. Verma2
1

Embedded Systems, MIT College of Engineering, BAMU University, Aurangabad, India

Dept. of Electronics & Communication, MIT College of Engineering, BAMU University, Aurangabad, India

ABSTRACT
Till now many developments had been done to improve
the performance of different clustering algorithms for
image segmentation. While implementing some of them,
we got unsatisfactory outputs. We came across several
disadvantages.
Therefore
to
overcome
these
disadvantages like dead centers and trapped centers, we
came across Adaptive Fuzzy K-means clustering
technique used for image segmentation. As we know
clustering is used in many areas like weather forecasting,
medical, atmospheric analysis etc. But in this paper we
have focused only on normal images by using some
segmentation techniques. All these algorithms are
implemented and analysis is done on the basis of
clustering output. We found Adaptive Fuzzy K-means
clustering gives better results as well as the iteration
time required is also less as compared to other
algorithms which are considered here.
Keywords - C-means clustering, Image segmentation, Kmeans clustering, Moving K-means clustering.

I.

INTRODUCTION

Basically images are way of conveying emotions,

feelings and particular information in a simple way. We
can easily retrieve that information from the image by
just looking at it, but the same information should be
extracted by processing unit for performing certain task
related to it [2]. So the image is segmented into different
clusters for getting related information from the image.
Thus due to image clustering it becomes easy for passing
certain information as well as it also helps in
understanding in a proper way.
Thus in the clustering process we divide a digital image
into multiple regions which is the collection of pixels.
These pixels are having same properties in accordance
with colour, intensity, texture etc. Image segmentation is
used in many areas such as compression, retrieval,
detection and enhancement of image. Therefore image
segmentation is used in many other applications and for

all the above mentioned applications we cannot use a

single method, which can give good results [2]. As we
have various parameters and different factors like noise,
brightness, color, shape and size etc. So usually many of
the clustering algorithms use are having two types of
pixels gray level:1.1. Discontinuity:- In discontinuity level the clustering
of image is based upon sudden change in the intensity in
gray level. For example we can say points, lines, edges
etc.
1.2. Similarity:- In similarity level the clustering of
image is divided into number of parts that are similar
depending upon a set of predefined standard.
Basically image segmentation is categorized into five
different types, they are:
1.2.1 Edge detection:- In Edge detection based method
for segmentation, it finds those elements in the image
that indicates edges of a particular object shown in that
image. The output is binary image having the edges of
that object shown in the image. Algorithms generally
used are sobel, prewitt and laplacian operators. These
algorithms are applicable for images which are simple,
noise free and will produce missing, extra, complex
edges.
1.2.2. Thresholding:- In thresholding, a multilevel
image is converted into a binary that is it allots zero for
the background and one to every pixel for the object
taking into consideration some threshold value t. Here
t indicates colour or intensity of object. For global
thresholding the value of t is always kept constant.
1.2.3. Region:- In region type of segmentation it uses a
image having particular parameters for mapping a
particular type of pixels in an image to a group of pixels
called regions. These regions may from an object or a
meaningful part in the image. There are different
techniques, they are local and global techniques which
uses splitting and merging of image. The output of
region based algorithms depends on the input image and
application area.

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 3, Issue 5, August 2014

1.2.4. Graph:- Graphical based techniques, different

segments of graph are connected together and sub graphs
also follow the same technique. In image segmentation
the image is divided into parts and these parts are
connected together. Graphical technique initially creates
a grid graph and then calculates initial weights. During
this process of grid formation it chooses the edge which
has maximum weight and deduces the two end nodes.
Then these reduced nodes which are having same
neighbours then only one edge is kept and its weight is
again determined.
1.2.5. Cluster:- In this type of segmentation the pixels
of image are grouped together, taking into consideration
different parameters to form clusters. These parameters
which are taken into consideration for forming clusters
can be colour, intensity, texture, gray level etc. There are
different techniques or algorithms used to form clusters.
All the algorithms are iterative type, which reduces the
difference between cluster center and pixel. There are
certain algorithms that surely converge and provide good
results by taking less time to converge.
Further Clustering is divided into following algorithms:
a) Fuzzy C-Means Clustering Algorithm.
b) Moving K-Means Clustering Algorithm.
c) Adaptive Fuzzy K-Means Clustering Algorithm.
There are many other clustering algorithms used in
image segmentation, but in this paper we are going to
focus on above mentioned algorithms. As these
algorithms are more poplar and most widely used in
many applications. These algorithms also provide better
results at less computation time, then others.

II.

CONVENTIONAL
ALGORITHMS

membership and the clusters are updated using following

expression:

n Number of data points.

Vj- jth Cluster center.
c Number of cluster centers
ij- - Euclidean distance between ith and jth cluster center.
m = fuzziness index

Fig. 1 Flowchart of FCM algorithm.

CLUSTERING

Now we will the above mentioned clustering algorithms

in detail:
2.1
FUZZY
C-MEANS
CLUSTERING
ALGORITHM: Fuzzy C-means Clustering Algorithm
is also a effective method because it can also retrieve
information from the applied image. In Fuzzy C-means
(FCM) a particular pixel can be present in one or more
clusters, due to fuzziness property [2]. In this algorithm
a membership is assigned to every pixel depending upon
the distance between particular pixels with its center, of
that cluster. Maximum number of pixels near to cluster
center more is its membership towards that cluster
center. And now the summation of membership of every
pixel must be equal to one after every iteration of

Here the centroid of a cluster is calculated taking into

consideration the mean of all pixels, which are weighted
by the degree of belong to that cluster. The degree of
being in a particular cluster (degree of membership)
related to the inverse of the distance to the cluster. By
iteratively updating the cluster centers and the
membership grades for each data point, FCM repeatedly
moves the cluster center to a right location after every
iteration among the pixels.
2.2
MOVING
K-MEANS
CLUSTERING
ALGORITHM: The Moving K-means clustering
algorithm is partial changed version of K-means [4]. In
this algorithm fitness technique is used for forming
clusters [8]. So that every cluster must have a significant
number of pixels and then the new position of cluster is

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 3, Issue 5, August 2014

calculated. In this algorithm the closest cluster for every

cluster is calculated using:

And the fitness for every cluster is calculated using

Every cluster centers must satisfy the following

condition:

from one cluster to other and also the cluster centers

does not change its position.
At last the K-means algorithm is minimized by

where Xi(j) - no of pixels

Cj - cluster center.
||Xi(j) Cj||2 - distance between pixels and cluster center.
K - number of clusters.

where a - constant value between 0and 1/3

Cs - centers that have the smallest fitness values.
The positions of Cs is again calculated using:

The value of a is then updated according to:

The iteration process is repeated until the following
condition is satisfied [9].
C1 - centers that have the largest fitness values.

Fig. 2 Flowchart of AFKM algorithm.

2.3 ADAPTIVE FUZZY K-MEANS CLUSTERING

ALGORITHM: Adaptive Fuzzy K-means clustering
algorithm is very simple method having less complexity.
As stated earlier it has guarantee to converge. Very
important point which has to be taken into consideration
is that it computational time is very less. Therefore we
get good results in less time. Initially it was widely used
only for biomedical image segmentation for human
anatomy [3], but now a days it is used in number of
different applications such as Artificial intelligence,
Email filtering, Pattern recognition etc.
Now let us go through the steps used in Adaptive Fuzzy
K-Means Clustering Algorithm:
1.Select the value of K randomly. Where, K indicates the
number of clusters to be formed.
2) Assign every pixel of the image to a particular cluster.
3) Find the distance between each pixel and cluster
center. Then minimize the distance between pixel and
cluster center.
4) Again calculate new centers for every cluster by
averaging all of the pixels in that particular cluster.
5) Follow second & third step till the algorithm
convergence i.e not a single pixel changes its position

We have implemented Adaptive Fuzzy K-means

clustering algorithm for smaller values of K. This
algorithm gave us better results and it converged at
much faster rate. Aim of developing an exact and more
consistent image which can be used in finding cracks,
face recognition, finger print recognition and in locating
an object clearly from a satellite image etc [1]. It works
nicely when segments are not well separated from each
other. We revived an idea of clustering of images based
on the different parameters of the image. It minimizes
cluster to cluster variance, but it does not make sure that
the final result has a global minimum of variance [5].

III.

LIMITATIONS OF CONVENTIONAL
CLUSTERING ALGORITHMS

Fuzzy C-means Clustering Algorithm is also a effective

method because it can also retrieve information from the
applied image. It is an iterative and unsupervised type of
clustering algorithm. Here every pixel has belongingness
to a degree of clusters instead of completely belonging
to a particular cluster, which is called as membership.
This membership value is normally distributed among

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International Journal of Scientific Research Engineering & Technology (IJSRET), ISSN 2278 0882
Volume 3, Issue 5, August 2014

the clusters. It also has certain drawbacks, which stated

as:
1. It is very sensitive to outliers and could not create
similar segments of the image.
2. Then also it converges to local optimum value.
3. It is not suitable for the corrupt images, having noise
and salt/pepper effect.
To overcome the aforementioned problems, the fitness
concept has been explained in the next algorithm which
is moving K-means (MKM) clustering algorithm. It is
much competent to overcome the above mentioned
problems and also reduces dead centers and center
redundancy problems. Due to which the effect of trapped
center at local minima is also reduced. But still there are
certain dis-advantages in Moving K-means algorithm,
which are stated as:
1. It also much sensitive to noise.
2. In certain images the clusters or centers are unable to
locate, which tends to inaccurate outputs.
3. At the time of updating process, all the clusters must
be active. Otherwise the cluster having highest value of
fitness has to share his members with lowest value of
fitness.
So these drawbacks are overcame to a certain extent by
using AFKM algorithm.

IV.

STIMULATION RESULTS
Original Image

Fuzzy C-means

Moving K-means

Adaptive Fuzzy K-means

Also we will see the computation time required for all

the different algorithms.
Table 1. Required computation time.
Algorithms
Time in seconds
Fuzzy C-means
2.0352
Moving K-means
2.0091
Adaptive Fuzzy K-means
0.6551
Here in Figure 1 shows the stimulation results of
different algorithms which we have implemented in this
paper.
Here we have taken the cluster value as 4 and the
number of iterations as 10. Therefore we can conclude
that we got good results in AFKM clustering as
compared to other clustering techniques implemented in
this paper. As well as we can also see the time required
for computing results.

V.

CONCLUSION

We have implemented Fuzzy C-means, Moving Kmeans and also Adaptive Fuzzy K-means clustering
algorithm for image segmentation and we came to a
conclusion that by using AFKM technique we get better
results as compared to other two algorithms [7]. And
from the computation time table it is very clear that the
time required for creating clusters is less for AFKM [1].
The execution time is less for AFKM due to less no. of
iterations. Thats why AFKM is more efficient than
Fuzzy C-means and Moving K-means clustering
algorithm.
So the aim of developing an exact and more consistent
image which can be used in finding cracks, face
recognition, finger print recognition and in locating an
object clearly from a satellite image etc [6] can be
successfully done using AFKM. It works effectively
when pixels are not properly separated from each other.
AFKM also reduces cluster to cluster variance, but it
does not make sure that the final result has a global
minimum of variance.

REFERENCES

Fig. 3 Stimulation results of different algorithms.

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Volume 3, Issue 5, August 2014

Analysis of Clustering based Segmentation Algorithms

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