International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
Volume 118 No. 14 2018, 235-239
ISSN: 1311-8080 (printed version); ISSN: 1314-3395 (on-line version)
url: http://www.ijpam.eu
Special Issue
COMPARATIVE STUDY OF IMAGE SEGMENTATION TECHNIQUES ON CHRONIC KIDNEY
DISEASES
Swapan Samaddar1, Dr. A RamaSwamy Reddy2
1
CSE, Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Guntur, India
2
IT, Vignan’s Foundation for Science, Technology and Research, Guntur, India
swapansamaddar@gmail.com1, ramaswamyreddymail@gmail.com2
Abstract: One of the fundamental approaches of digital
image processing is image segmentation. In many
applications, it is widely used. For image segmentation,
multiple general purpose algorithms and techniques have
been developed. These applications are involved in
detection, recognition and measurement of different
features. The objective of image segmentation is to
partition an image into meaningful regions with respect
to a particular application. This paper presents a review
on the different techniques of image segmentation and
comparison of it related to chronic kidney diseases.
Keywords: Image Segmentation, Region Growing,
Region Splitting, Region Merging, Thresholding.
1. Introduction
To extract useful information from images without
human assistance is the objective of digital image
processing [1]. To recognize objects in an image is the
task of segmentation. The rest of the image is
background. The target of image segmentation is the
independent domain partition of the image into a set of
regions which are distinct visually and uniformity based
on low level information, such as gray level, texture or
color. For high level processing such as object
recognition, scene analysis etc., we can have used this as
an input. Generally, each segmentation methods have
two basic properties of the pixels in relation to their local
neighborhood: discontinuity and similarity. The methods
which have some discontinuity property of the pixels are
called boundary based methods, whereas methods which
have some similarity property are called region-based
methods. Unfortunately, it is often failed to produce
accurate segmentation results using these two method
[2]. For all application, a single method cannot produce
expected result. Reason behind is that the images have
different property and some other factors also like noise,
brightness etc. put impact on the images, and it is not
possible to apply a single segmentation method and also
a single evaluation technique for all types of imagery.
Using this paper, we check the results of various
segmentation algorithms, using the subjective evaluation,
on the different threshold in edge based methods; block
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size in split and merge method etc., and a good
segmented result of an algorithm is having different
value of the parameters for different images.
Image Segmentation and its Evaluation
To simplify the changes of image representation, image
segmentation is required, i.e., the image is transferred
into something that is more meaningful and easier to
analyze.
Image segmentation is broadly classified into four classes
• Edge detection methods
• Thresholding based methods
• Region based methods
• Cluster based methods
It is difficult to predict whether one algorithm produces
more accurate segmentations than another, whether it be
for a particular image or set of images, or more
generally, for a whole class of images. A variety of
attempts have already been made by many researchers to
end of this. Until a satisfied result is achieved, the
iteration of algorithm selection, image segmentation and
segmentation evaluation will not stop. However, till now,
there is still no universally accepted method of
evaluation of segmentation result, which makes
evaluation-based algorithm selection hard to apply to real
applications. As a matter of fact, the most
straightforward and effective solution is to select
different algorithms to segment different images.
a) Edge Detection Techniques: To significantly reduces
the quantity of data to be processed within image, we can
use edge representation, however it will retain essential
information regarding the shapes of objects in the scene.
To extract the exact edge line with good orientation is the
major property of the edge detection technique. We have
reviewed the most commonly used discontinuity based
edge detection techniques in this section. Those
techniques are Roberts edge detection, Sobel Edge
Detection, Prewitt edge detection, Kirsh edge detection,
Robinson edge detection, Marr-Hildreth edge detection,
LoG edge detection and Canny Edge Detection.
International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
(i) Roberts Edge Detection: Using this technique, we
can perform a simple, quick to compute, 2-D spatial
gradient measurement on an image. Here input is a
grayscale image which is same as to the output is the
most common usage for this technique.
(ii) Sobel Edge Detection: Where the gradient is highest
within the edges, at those point it will proceed. Purpose
is to find the estimated absolute gradient magnitude at
each point in n input grayscale image.
(iii) Prewitt Edge Detection: It will be estimated in the
3x3 neighborhood for eight directions. We have to
calculate all the eight convolution masks. One
complication mask is then selected, namely with the
purpose of the largest module. It is slightly simpler to
implement computationally than the Sobel detection, but
it tends to produce somewhat noisier results.
(iv) Kirsch Edge detection: The masks of this technique
are defined by considering a single mask and rotating it
to eight main compass directions: North, Northwest,
West, Southwest, South, Southeast, East and Northeast.
(v) Robinson Edge detection: Here masks are
symmetrical about their directional axis, the axis with the
zeros. Here need to compute the result on four masks and
the result from other four can be obtained by negating the
result from the first four.
(vi) Marr-Hildreth Edge Detection: It is a way of
detecting edges in digital images that is continuous
curves wherever there are well-built and fast variations in
image brightness. It is an easy method and it operates by
convolving the image with the LoG function, or, as a
quick approximation by DoGs.
(vii) LoG edge detection: The LoG of an image f(x,y) is
a second order derivative defined as,
 
It has two effects, it smoothes the image and it computes
the Laplacian, which yields a double edge image.
(viii) Canny Edge Detection: It is a very important
method to find edges by separating noise from the image
before find edges of image. Unlike Roberts and Sobel,
this operation is not very susceptible to noise. If this
detector worked well it would be superior.
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(b) Threshold:Thresholding is used to split an image
into smaller segments, or junks, using at least one color
or gray scale value to define their boundary in image
processing.
There are three types of Thresholding algorithms.
Global Thresholding
Local Thresholding
Adaptive Thresholding
(i) Global Thresholding: Global Thresholding can be
used, When the pixel values of the components and that
of background are fairly consistent in their respective
values over the entire image.
If g(x, y) is a threshold version of f(x, y) at some global
threshold T,
1, ,
,  
=0,
 
(ii) Threshold Selection based on Histogram based:
It’s mainly depends on the success of the estimating the
threshold value which separates the two homogenous
region of the foreground and background of an image.
Let P1 and P2 be the gray value of the peaks of the
histogram. The threshold value T is given by .
Or T may be the gray level at the minimum between the
two peaks.
T= min H (u), U€ [P1, P2]
Where H (u) is the histogram value at gray level u
between P1 and P2.
(iii) Threshold Selection based on Iterative: This
method gives better result when the histogram doesn’t
clearly define valley point. This algorithm is a special
one dimensional case of K-means clustering that
converges at a local minimum.
(iv) Threshold Selection based on Otsu’s method: This
method is focused to find the optimal value for the global
threshold. The main drawback of this method of
threshold selection is that it assumes that the histogram is
bimodal. This method fails if two classes are of different
sizes and also with variable illumination.
(v) Thresholding based on Maximum correlation: On
maximizing the correlation between the original gray
level image and the threshold image is a Thresholding
method demonstrated by Brink [3]. We can represent the
gray levels of the two classes in the threshold image by
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the two a posteriori average values below and above the
threshold.
(vi) Multithresholding Methods: It is a process which
segments a gray-level image into several distinct regions.
It determines more than one threshold for the given
image and segments the image into certain brightness
regions, which correspond to one background and several
objects.
(vii) Threshold Selection based on Clustering: The
objective of clustering is to get meaningful result,
effective storage and fast retrieval in various areas.
(viii) Fuzzy c means clustering: It is a data clustering
technique in which a dataset is grouped into n clusters
with every data point in the dataset belonging to every
cluster to a certain degree [4]. It [5, 6, and 7] is an
unsupervised technique which has been successfully
applied to feature analysis, clustering, and classifier
designs in fields such as astronomy, geology, medical
imaging, target recognition, and image segmentation.
(ix) K-Means clustering: It is an efficient method of
threshold selection. Using this algorithm, the image is
divided into k segments using (k-1) thresholds and
minimizing the total variance within each segment. It
works well if the spreads of the distributions are
approximately equal, but it does not handle well the case
where the distributions have differing variances.
(x) Local Thresholding: When we have uneven
illumination due to shadows or due to the direction of
illumination, a single threshold will not work well.
Threshold function T(x, y) is given by
0, , ,
,  
=1 , , high quality clusters seeing the low level of computation
 
Where T(x, y) =f (x, y) + T
(xi) Adaptive Thresholding: It will take a grayscale or
color image as input and, in the simplest implementation,
outputs a binary image representing the segmentation.
The drawback of this method is that it is computational
expensive and, therefore, is not appropriate for real-time
applications.
(c) Region Based Segmentation Method: Using region
based segmentation we can partition a document image
into homogenous areas of connected pixels through the
application of homogeneity criteria among candidate sets
of pixels.
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(i)Region Transformation Based: Segmentation
consists on partitioning a document image into a set of
connected regions.
(ii) Region Growing Method: The objective of region
growing is to map the input document image data into
sets of connected pixels, called regions, according to a
prescribed criterion which generally examines the
properties of local groups of pixels. It is a method that
groups pixels or sub regions into larger regions based on
predefined criteria.
(iii) Region Splitting: Using this method, we can break
the document image into a set of disjoint regions, which
are coherent within themselves.
(iv) Region Merging: It is usually depending on the
order in which regions are merged. The simplest methods
begin merging by starting the segmentation using regions
of 2x2, 4x4 or 8x8 pixels. Region descriptions are then
based on their statistical gray level properties.
(v) Watershed Region: It is defined as the region over
all point of flows ‘downhill’ to common point. The
watershed is applied of the document image gradient and
the watershed lines separate homogeneous regions and
giving the desired segmentation results.
(d) Clustering Algorithm: It is a method in which
objects are grouped based on their characteristics. A
cluster is basically an assembly of objects which are
similar between them and are not similar to the objects
fitting to additional clusters.
The clustering algorithms are as follows:
(i) K-Means Clustering: It will produce moderately
and calculations required. This technique focuses to
diminish the total of squared distances in between all
points of pixel and the center of the cluster. The popular
K-means algorithm [8] is an error minimization
algorithm where the function to minimize is the sum of
squared error:
∑ ∑ ∈ (1)
(ii) Fuzzy C-Means Clustering: It is a system of
clustering which lets one piece of data to belong to two
or extra clusters. It [9] tries to catch clusters of pixel in
the data by reducing the objective function as shown in
the equation below:
International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics
K=∑ ∑ (2)
(iii) Log-Based Clustering: We can use the logs which
are maintained by information retrieval process (like web
servers access logs) to achieve image segmentation using
clustering. It is fairly precise in comparison to previous
algorithm but this algorithm is not very proficient to use.
Table 1. Monochrome Image Segmentation Techniques
[10]
2. Conclusion
We have reviewed and summarizes some existing
methods of segmentation through this paper. On color
segmentation, there is not so much rich literature survey.
There is enough scope for the fuzzy set theoretic
approaches to segmentation. Using neural network
model, it will give very promising result as it can
generate output in real time system. Also these
algorithms are property of robustness. To select the
appropriate segmentation technique, it’s mainly depends
on the type of images and application areas. To find
methods of objective evaluation of segmentation results
is an interesting area of investigation. To find a single
quantitative index for this purpose is a very difficult task
because such an index should involve many factors like
homogeneity, contrast, compactness, continuity, psycho-
visual perception, etc. Best judge for this is the human
being. However, there is a possibility for a small vector
of attributes which can be used for objective evaluation
of results.
Acknowledgement
The authors are greatly thankful to Vignan’s Foundation
for Science, Technology and Research, Vadlamudi for
offering the facilities to accomplish this research.
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