Review of Image Segmentation Algorithms
Mandeep Kaur
Electronics & Communication
Engineering Department
Lovely Professional University Punjab,
India. 144402
kaurmandeep1190@gmail.com
Abstract - Image segmentation is an
important aspect in image analysis
responsible for partitioning an image into
multiple sub-regions based on a desired
feature. There are various techniques used
for this purpose such as thresholding,
histogram based methods, edge detection
techniques, active contour model etc.
Active contours have been widely used as
attractive image segmentation methods
because they always produce sub-regions
with continuous boundaries. The use of
level set theory has provided more
flexibility and convenience in
implementation of active contours. In this
paper we have tried to brief the taxonomy
and current state of the art in Image
segmentation and current advancements in
Active Contours.
Keywords: Thresholding, Active Contours,
Snakes, Level Sets, GAC, C-V method.
I.INTRODUCTION
The basic purpose of segmentation is to
identify and isolate the region of interest
Charu Sharma
Electronics & Communication
Engineering Department
Lovely Professional University Punjab,
India. 144402
c.sharma32806@gmail.com
from the given image. Image segmentation
is used to locate boundaries and objects in
image [1][3][13]. In other words we can
say that it is the process of assigning a
label to every pixel in an image such that
pixels with the same label share certain
visual characteristics. The problem of
image segmentation can be formulated as
follows.
Given image I = {pi}, a complete
segmentation problem is to determine
connected subset Ri = (Ri ∈ I), such that
⋃ 𝑅𝑖 = 𝐼 , 𝑅𝑖 ∩ 𝑅𝑗 = 𝜑 (𝑖 ≠ 𝑗 (1)
the
𝑖
Segmentation is based on homogeneity of
the image characteristics such as intensity,
colour, texture, or the combination of all
these information[14].
II. SEGMENTATION METHODS
There are number of different approaches
in image segmentation such as: histogram-
based method, model-based methods,
edge-based technique, region-based
methods, watershed technique and active The result is a binary image, but that alone
contour methods. is not yet segmentation. This must further
be worked out by joining pixels together

Segmentation Techniques
into one or more regions or areas. The
threshold method depends on the
possibility to define a threshold that works
well everywhere in the image and require a
region growing or other technique of
Thresholding Region Based
segmentation if two objects have the same
colour [14].
Edge Based
Edge detection is a well-developed field on
its own within image processing. Region
boundaries and edges are closely related,
Gradient since there is often a sharp adjustment in
Clustering
intensity at the region boundaries. Edge

Laplacian detection techniques have therefore been

Region Growing used as the base of another segmentation
technique. The edges identified by edge
Fig 1. Image Segmentation Techniques
detection are often disconnected. To
The simplest method of image segment an object from an image however,
segmentation is called the thresholding one needs closed region boundaries. Some
method. This method is based on a clip- examples are Sobel, Prewitt, Roberts etc.
level or a threshold value to turn a grey-
Histogram-based methods are very
scale image into a binary image[13].
efficient when compared to other image
Several popular methods are used in
segmentation methods because they
industry including the maximum entropy
typically require only one pass through
method, Otsu's method (maximum
the pixels[15]. In this technique, a
variance), etc. A parameter θ called the
histogram is computed from all of the
brightness threshold is chosen and applied
pixels in the image, and the peaks and
to an image A[x, y].
valleys in the histogram are used to locate
If A[x, y] ≥ θ A [m, n] = object = 1 the clusters in the image. Colour or
Else, A [m, n] = background = 0 (2) intensity can be used as the measure. A
refinement of this technique is
to recursively apply the histogram-seeking
method to clusters in the image in order to
divide them into smaller clusters. This is
repeated with smaller and smaller clusters
until no more clusters are formed.
The watershed transformation considers
the gradient magnitude of an image as a
topographic surface [15]. Pixels having the
highest gradient magnitude intensities
(GMIs) correspond to watershed lines,
which represent the region boundaries.
Water placed on any pixel enclosed by a
common watershed line flows downhill to
a common local intensity minimum (LIM).
Pixels draining to a common minimum
form a catch basin, which represents a
segment.
III. ACTIVE CONTOUR MODEL
In this technique the user suggest an initial
contour, as it is shown in the figure.
Fig 2. Evolution of contour around the
desired figure
This framework attempts to minimize an
energy associated to the current contour as
a sum of an internal and external energy:
𝐸𝑆𝑛𝑎𝑘𝑒 = 𝐸𝑖𝑛𝑡 + 𝐸𝑒𝑥𝑡 (3)
The external energy is supposed to be
minimal when the snake is at the object
boundary position. The internal energy is
supposed to be minimal when the snake
has a shape which is supposed to be
relevant considering the shape of the
sought object [1][2].
ACM segmentation functional can be
divided into two groups
 Edge-based - the object to be
segmented should have its
boundary visible in the image, as
some sort of prominent edge.
 Region-based - the region of the
object in the image should have a
different statistic in some feature
space, compared to its
surroundings.
Often, these functional are combined with
information on the shape of the region
being extracted.
Different ACM approaches
 Snakes
 Geometric active contours
 Geodesic active contours
A. Snakes
Snakes model was introduced by Michael
Kass, Andrew Witkin and Demetri
Terzopoulos in 1988 [1], for interactive
interpretation of images, in which user-
imposed constraint forces guide the snake
near features of the interesting image.
They stated that a snake is an energy-
minimizing spline guided by external
constraint forces and influenced by image
forces that pull it toward features such as
lines and edges. Snakes are greatly used in
applications like object tracking, shape
recognition, segmentation, edge detection,
stereo matching. A simple elastic snake is
thus defined by
 a set of n points
 an internal elastic energy term
 an external edge based energy term
The snakes model try to segment the
image based on the following energy:
𝐸𝑆𝑛𝑎𝑘𝑒 = 𝐸𝑖𝑛𝑡 + 𝐸𝑒𝑥𝑡
where, ∫ 𝛼|𝑐 ′ |2 + 𝛽|𝑐 ′′ |2 𝑑𝑠
Snakes are autonomous and
adapting in their search for a minimal
energy state. They can be
manipulated using external image forces.
They can be made sensitive to image scale
by incorporating Gaussian smoothing in
the image energy function. They can be
used to track dynamic objects in temporal
as well as the spatial dimensions. But
some of the drawbacks are that they can
often get stuck in local minima states; this
may be overcome by using simulated
annealing techniques at the expense of
longer computation times. They often
overlook minute features in the process of
minimizing the energy over the entire path
of their contours.
B. Geometric active contours
Geometric active contours attempt to
segment an object based on its edges, in a
level-set framework [4]. The initial
contour is chosen to include the object.
The contour evolves according to
𝐶𝑡 = 𝑔(𝑙)𝑘 𝑁 (6)
Where 𝑔(… … . . ) is a function which
should drop to zero at edges. The contour
evolution tends to smooth the contour, if
no other information is available. The
contour according to this evolution will
shrink to a point. Hence, a balloon force
(4) may be added
(5) 𝐶𝑡 = (𝑔(𝑙)𝑘 − 𝛽)𝑁 (7)
self- C. Geodesic active contours
The choice of a balloon force is arbitrary.
easily
It is not clear if we actually minimize some
functional, and the global minimizer is not
clear either [5]. The geodesic active
contour tries to remedy this by minimizing
the following weighted length functional:

∫ 𝑔(𝑙)𝑑𝑠 (8)
g(l) constitutes an (inverse) edge indicator.
For example,
1 Vese proposed a new model for active
𝑔(𝑙) = (9)
√|∇𝑙|2 +∈
The functional state that curves
segmenting the object should try and
surround it with a minimal weighted arc
length. This can be given a physical
interpretation: We are looking for the
trajectory of a particle on a map, where the
potential energy at each point is g(I ), and
we assume the particle's trajectory should
form a closed simple curve. The potential
energy of the particle is given by
u (c) = - λ g (l)2 (10)
IV. DEVELOPMENT IN THE BASIC
SNAKES AND LEVEL SET METHOD
Chenyang Xu and Jerry L. Prince in 1998
presented a model to solve the problem
associated with initialization and poor
convergence to boundary concavities [2].
The external force GVF i.e gradient vector
flow, is computed as a diffusion of the
gradient vectors of a gray-level or binary
edge map derived from the image. It
differs fundamentally from traditional
snake external forces in that it cannot be
written as the negative gradient of a
potential function, and the corresponding
snake is formulated directly from a force
balance condition rather than a variable
formulation.
In 2001 Tony F. Chan and Luminita A.
contours to detect objects in a given image,
based on techniques of curve evolution,
Mumford–Shah functional for
segmentation and level sets [3]. This
model is not based on an edge-function to
stop the evolving curve on the desired
boundary. Also, we do not need to smooth
the initial image, even if it is very noisy
and in this way, the locations of
boundaries are very well detected and
preserved. By this model, we can detect
objects whose boundaries are not
necessarily defined by gradient or with
very smooth boundaries, for which the
classical active contour models are not
applicable. We can automatically detect
interior contours starting with only one
initial curve. The position of the initial
curve can be anywhere in the image, and it
does not necessarily surround the objects
to be detected.
In 2005 a new variational formulation or
geometric active contour was proposed by
Chunming Li, Chenyang Xu , Changfeng
Gui , and Martin D. Fox that forces the
level set function to be close to a signed
distance function, and therefore
completely eliminates the need of the
costly re-initialization procedure. The
resulting evolution of the level set function
is the gradient flow that minimizes the
overall energy functional. The proposed
variational level set formulation has three
main advantages over the traditional level
set formulations. A significantly larger
time step can be used for numerically
solving the evolution partial differential
equation, and therefore speeds up the
curve evolution, second, the level set
function can be initialized with general
functions that are more efficient to
construct and easier to use in practice than
the widely used signed distance function
and third, the level set evolution in our
formulation can be easily implemented by
simple finite difference scheme and is
computationally more efficient [5].
Recently a region based active contour
model is proposed by Kaihua Zhang, Lei
Zhang, Huihui Song, Wengang Zhou [9]
which is implemented with a special
processing named Selective Binary and
Gaussian Filtering Regularized Level Set
(SBGFRLS) method, that first selectively
penalizes the level set function to be
binary, and then uses a Gaussian
smoothing kernel to regularize it. The
advantages of this method are that a new
region-based signed pressure force (SPF)
function is proposed, which can efficiently
stop the contours at weak or blurred edges.
Second, the exterior and interior
boundaries can be automatically detected
with the initial contour being anywhere in
the image. Third, the proposed ACM with
SBGFRLS has the property of selective
local or global segmentation. Fourth, the
level set function can be easily initialized
with a binary function, which is more
efficient to construct than the widely used
signed distance function (SDF). The
computational cost for traditional re-
initialization can also be reduced. Finally,
the proposed algorithm can be efficiently
implemented by the simple finite
difference scheme.
Taking the advantages of Geodesic active
contour (GAC) and Chan-Vese (C-V)
model a new method for intensity
inhomogeneous image segmentation was
presented by Thi-Thao Tran, Van-Truong
Pham, Yun-Jen Chiu, and Kuo-Kai Shyu.
There model worked upon the images with
inhomogeneous intensity and also on the
images with discrete or blurr edges. Level
set method is used to derive the evolution
flow of this method and as a result of this
it is possible to change the topology of the
image. Hence they were able to overcome
the limitations of the model in [8] through
this model.
V. SUMMARY
Image segmentation is done to identify and
isolate the region of interest from the given
image. Large number of various
techniques have been formulates for the
segmentation of an image such as
threshold methods, edge-based technique,
region-based methods, active contour
methods etc. Snakes is the classical model
in active contour method [1], [2]. It gives
an efficient framework for image
segmentation, but it cannot change the
topology in the process of segmentation
process. To overcome this drawback, the
level set method was proposed in order to
isolate shapes from their background. The
existing active contour models can be
classified into two classes: edge based and
region-based model. Edge based model
works well when the objects and
background in segmented image are
heterogeneous, but we cannot get satisfied
results when dealing with object with
discrete/ blur boundaries or noise. One of
the most popular methods in this class is
Geodesic active contour (GAC).The region
based models give better performance
while compared with the edge-based
model such as the ability to work well with
the object having blur/weak boundary, and
less sensitive to the initial position of the
contour. One of the most popular models
is Chan-Vese (C-V) model. In order to
get the advantages of both GAC and C-V
model, some hybrid model are proposed.
Recently, Zhang [12] proposed the sign
pressure force in an active contour model.
This model takes the advantages of GAC
and C-V models and could optionally
select local or global segmentation.
Though having some advantages, those
models cannot detect the image with
intensity inhomogeneity which occupies a
large number in real applications. Thi-
Thao Tran, Van-Truong Pham, Yun-Jen
Chiu, and Kuo-Kai Shyu [10] introduced
an active contour model with selective
global or local segmentation for intensity
inhomogeneous image segmentation. They
used the local information in region-based
signed pressure force. That model can
worked well with heterogeneous images
also.
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