Region growing based segmentation with automatic
seed selection using threshold techniques on
X-radiography images
Muthukumaran Malarvel1,
Gopalakrishnan Sethumadhavan2
School of Computing,
SASTRA University,
Thanjavur, India.
1
e-mail: mmkmtech@gmail.com,
2
e-mail: sgk@mca.sastra.edu
Abstract In this article, a novel scheme based on region
growing segmentation is presented to detect features. This
method provides solution to automatic seed selection in region
growing segmentation, thus aims to segment the region of interest
in an uneven background in industry X-radiography images.
Otsu and Kittlers thresholds are employed for the automatic
seed selection. The performance of the proposed method is
evaluated by the relative foreground area error metric and
compared with other existing segmentation methods. The
performance measures show that the proposed method is capable
of providing the required segmentation of features.
Keywords seeded region growing; automatic seed selection;
segmentation; X-radiography image
I. INTRODUCTION
The main goal of segmentation is to acquire information for
an easy analysis of features. Several segmentation techniques,
having different performance, have recently been proposed [1].
Homogeneity is a significant property of a region and is used
as the fundamental segmentation principle in region growing
based segmentation. The key idea of this method is to split an
image into regions of maximum homogeneity. Seeded region
growing technique is also important for image segmentation,
which is based on the information about the semantic image
components in the seed selection procedure [2]. In this process,
the selection of the labeled seeds is critical.
Threshold based techniques are computationally
inexpensive, fast and simple to implement but have few
drawbacks such as the threshold based algorithms neglect the
spatial information of the image, may miss edges, and the
selection of the threshold value is difficult. Similarly, edge
based segmentation gives good results in few types of defects
present in the industry X-radiography images, while few others
are not clearly predictable by this technique. It is very difficult
to segment the accurate border and closed edges by using edge
based segmentation in low quality images. Thus, it is difficult
to obtain the features and dimensions of the features in an
industry X-radiography image [3]. Therefore, the proposed
method employs region grows based segmentation technique.
In recent years, region grow based methods [46] have
been presented, which are suitable for low contrast and
978-1-5090-0612-0/16/$31.00 2016 IEEE
Purna Chandra Rao Bhagi,
Saravanan Thangavel,
Arunmuthu Krishnan
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research,
Kalpakkam, India.
unevenly illuminated radiography images. Rafael Vilar et al.
[4] presented an approach to establish a weld region in
different stages. The weld region is isolated from the rest of
the elements by separating an object from its background.
Otsus method was utilized in this approach to select
threshold; and the connected components in the binary image
were labeled. Subsequently, the weld region was identified by
a criterion differentiating between labeled objects, and the
maximum area was established. Wang et al. [5] presented
histogram based seed selection method, which employs region
growing of an object. In this method, histogram and threshold
can be identified iteratively, where a histogram is generated
for the output image of the previous image. Zahran et al. [6]
presented a method for automatic segmentation of radiography
images to determine the region of interest by using optimal
threshold of the image. The histogram was useful for the
automatic determination of the optimal threshold between the
objects and the background. Panigrahi et al. [7] proposed an
automatic seed selection method for ultrasound images. This
method employed mean filter in preprocessing the image and
utilized texture features to select seed point.
The aforementioned studies focused on segmentation of
foreground and background in radiography images with
various pre-processing and post-processing techniques. This
study proposes a new region growing based segmentation
technique with automatic seed selection for segmenting
features from uneven background in industry X-radiography
images without using any pre-processing techniques.
For automatic seeded region growing process, seeds are
selected automatically by addressing both Otsu [8] and
Kittlers [9] thresholds. In industry X-radiography images, the
objects of interest are the features of different intensities; while
the background intensity substantially overlaps distribution in
different regions in an image. It is assumed that an X-
radiography image contains more than two principal gray scale
regions, since an object is present in an uneven background
contrast instead of a uniform background contrast in the whole
image. When Otsu and Kittlers methods are applied on
industry X-radiography images, the background and
foreground are segmented differently. Thus, we used a
combination of these two methods in selection of seeds
automatically for segmentation.
 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research
II. PROPOSED METHOD
It is assumed that an image contains two different
(uneven) background contrast levels with foreground objects.
Consider that there are two background contrast regions Br1
and Br2 and an objects Fo is present in each region of the input
image f. T1 and T2 are the threshold value of f obtained from
Otsu and Kittlers methods, respectively. Segmentation of an
input image f to an output image g using T1 and T2 gives
following different results:
If Br1(x,y), Br2(x,y) and Fo(x,y) f(x,y)
g ( x, y) = {
1 for Br1 ( x, y ) and Fo ( x, y ) T1
0 for Br 2 ( x, y ) <T1
{
for Br 2 ( x, y ) and Fo ( x, y ) T1
g ( x, y) = 10 for Br1 ( x, y ) <T1
g ( x, y) = {
1 for Br1 ( x, y ) and Fo ( x, y ) T2
0 for Br 2 ( x, y ) <T2
{
for Br 2 ( x, y ) and Fo ( x, y ) T2
g ( x, y) = 10 for Br1 ( x, y ) <T2
These results are not enough to segment the foreground
objects accurately. Therefore, the proposed method utilizes two
threshold values to select seeds automatically for better
segmentation. The proposed automatic seed selection method
has two phases: (1) Seed collection and (2) Region growing.
The schematic of the proposed method is shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1: Schematics of the proposed method
In first phase, is the set of all unlabeled pixels in an
input image.
{ f | is unlabeled and (0 < > 255)}
Both threshold values T1 (Otsu) and T2 (Kittler) of pixels
matching in a set can be considered as a seed pixel. The set
of seed pixels denoted as Si then assigns a label of this set of
seed pixels as Pt1 and Pt 2 based on the threshold values T1 and
T2, respectively.
True if S i = T1 or T 2 | S i
Si = { false otherwise
(2)
In second phase, region growing can be established based
on the immediate 8-connected neighbor pixel N(i) from the
labeled seed pixel with the conditions of (3).
1 if N(i) of P t1 < T 1 | P t1
if N(i) of P t2 < T 2 | P t
g (x, y) =
(3)
0 otherwise
The proposed algorithm presented here and the
diagrammatic representation of the proposed seeded region
growing method is shown in Fig. 2.
or
Proposed algorithm
First phase:
Step 1: Find threshold values by using Otsus method (T1) and
Kittlers method (T2) of an input image f.
Step 2: Identify the seed pixels, which are equal to T1 and T2,
or
and assign to (set of all unlabeled pixels in an
image). Then label all seed pixels as Pt1 and Pt 2 .
Second phase:
Step 3: Scan all the labeled pixels. If label Pt1 and Pt 2
then assume it is a seed pixel.
Step 4: Apply the criterion (3).
Step 5: Check the neighboring pixels, they should be at least
8-connected and add them to the region if they are
satisfying the criterion.
Step 6: Repeat step 3 for each of the labeled pixels.
Step 7: Stop if no more pixels can be added.
(1)
Fig. 2: The proposed seeded region growing
III. RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
The proposed method was compared with Otsu and
Kittlers threshold methods, and its performance was evaluated
through Relative Foreground Area error (RAE) metric [10].
RAE is based on the measure of the area and can be calculated
between the segmented results and the ground truth image. The
ground truth image was obtained by manual thresholding
technique and expert opinion. A lower value of RAE indicates
a better output.
 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research

The proposed scheme is being experimented with the X- Table 1: Performance evaluation measures of the segmented image shown
Radiography of an aluminum cylinder with holes drilled in in Fig. 3.
different diameters from the top of the surface. Image Methods RAE
When Otsu and Kittlers methods are applied on images Otsu 0.4026
of varying intensities, it has been found that the holes are Image I Kittler 0.1489
extracted partially. But, the proposed scheme segmented all Proposed 0.0943
the holes precisely even without applying any of the
preprocessing techniques. Otsu 0.4865
Image II Kittler 0.0674
Table 1 illustrates the RAE metric values of the test image Proposed 0.0356
shown in Fig. 3. The measured values ensure the reliability of
the proposed method. Therefore, we conclude the proposed Otsu 0.6397
scheme well segmented the region of interest from uneven Image III Kittler 0.1114
background and low contrast images. Fig. 3 shows a sample Proposed 0.0931
outcome of the experiments.

Fig. 3: Segmentation results; First to third row image I, II and III, respectively (a) original X-radiography image; (b) ground truth; (c) Otsus method; (d)
Kittlers method; (e) The proposed method.
 2016 IEEE International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Computing Research
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, a new segmentation scheme based on region
growing method was proposed without implication of
preprocessing techniques in the input image. This scheme can
segment foreground from uneven background in industry X-
radiography images using automatic seeded region growing
technique. The combination of Otsu and Kittlers thresholds is
employed to select seeds automatically. The proposed
algorithm was compared with Otsu and Kittlers threshold
methods, and RAE evaluated its performance. The results
obtained by the proposed method are better than other
methods.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors would like to acknowledge the support
rendered by the managements of SASTRA University and
Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research, Kalpakkam by
way of providing necessary infrastructure and image database
for this research. This work was a part of generic image
processing tool named Bhadraloka being developed for the
research project entitled Development of techniques for
processing radiographic images for automated detection of
defects (No. 2013/36/40-BRNS/2305) in Dot NET platform
at SASTRA with the funding assistance from Board of
Research in Nuclear Science (BRNS), Department of Atomic
Energy, Government of India.
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