• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
• /
• v.2 no.2
• /
• pp.156-169
• /
• 1997

This paper proposes an image segmentation technique using watershed algorithm followed by region merging method. A gradient image is obtained by applying multiscale gradient algorithm to the image simplified by morphological filters. Since the watershed algorithm produces the oversegmented image. it is necessary to merge small segmented regions as wel]' as region having similar characteristics. For region merging. we utilize the merging criteria based on both the mean value of the pixels of each region and the edge intensities between regions obtained by the contour following process. Experimental results show that the proposed method produces meaningful image segmentation results.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
• /
• v.58 no.4
• /
• pp.806-816
• /
• 2009

Character recognition system consists of four step; text localization, text segmentation, character segmentation, and recognition. The character segmentation is very important and difficult because of noise, illumination, and so on. For high recognition rates of the system, it is necessary to take good performance of character segmentation algorithm. Many algorithms for character segmentation have been developed up to now, and many people have been recently making researches in segmentation of touching or overlapping character. Most of algorithms cannot apply to the text regions of management number marked on the slab in steel image, because the text regions are irregular such as touching character by strong illumination and by trouble of nozzle in marking machine, and loss of character. It is difficult to gain high success rate in various cases. This paper describes a new algorithm of character segmentation to recognize slab management number marked on the slab in the steel image. It is very important that pre-processing step is to convert gray image to binary image without loss of character and touching character. In this binary image, non-touching characters are simply separated by using vertical projection profile. For separating touching characters, after we use combined profile to find candidate points of boundary, decide real character boundary by using method based on recognition. In recognition step, we remove noise of character images, then recognize respective character images. In this paper, the proposed algorithm is effective for character segmentation and recognition of various text regions on the slab in steel image.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2002.06d
• /
• pp.145-148
• /
• 2002

A study on image searching and management techniques is actively developed by user requirements for multimedia information that are existing as images, audios, texts data from various information processing devices. We had been studied an automatical shape region segmentation method using color. distribution and edge characteristics of moving images for. contents-base description. The Proposed method uses a color information quantized on human visual system and extracts overlapped regions to be matched by using edge characteristics of the image frame. The performance of the proposed method is represented by similarity for comparison to a segmented image and original image.

• Journal of Computing Science and Engineering
• /
• v.5 no.3
• /
• pp.161-166
• /
• 2011

We present a fast algorithm for Korean text extraction and segmentation from subway signboards using smart phone sensors in order to minimize computational time and memory usage. The algorithm can be used as preprocessing steps for optical character recognition (OCR): binarization, text location, and segmentation. An image of a signboard captured by smart phone camera while holding smart phone by an arbitrary angle is rotated by the detected angle, as if the image was taken by holding a smart phone horizontally. Binarization is only performed once on the subset of connected components instead of the whole image area, resulting in a large reduction in computational time. Text location is guided by user's marker-line placed over the region of interest in binarized image via smart phone touch screen. Then, text segmentation utilizes the data of connected components received in the binarization step, and cuts the string into individual images for designated characters. The resulting data could be used as OCR input, hence solving the most difficult part of OCR on text area included in natural scene images. The experimental results showed that the binarization algorithm of our method is 3.5 and 3.7 times faster than Niblack and Sauvola adaptive-thresholding algorithms, respectively. In addition, our method achieved better quality than other methods.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
• /
• v.13 no.5
• /
• pp.1126-1134
• /
• 2017

A variety of medical service applications in the field of the Internet of Things (IoT) are being studied. Segmentation is important to identify meaningful regions in images and is also required in 3D images. Previous methods have been based on gray value and shape. The Visible Korean dataset consists of serially sectioned high-resolution color images. Unlike computed tomography or magnetic resonance images, automatic segmentation of color images is difficult because detecting an object's boundaries in colored images is very difficult compared to grayscale images. Therefore, skilled anatomists usually segment color images manually or semi-automatically. We present an out-of-core 3D segmentation method for large-scale image datasets. Our method can segment significant regions in the coronal and sagittal planes, as well as the axial plane, to produce a 3D image. Our system verifies the result interactively with a multi-planar reconstruction view and a 3D view. Our system can be used to train unskilled anatomists and medical students. It is also possible for a skilled anatomist to segment an image remotely since it is difficult to transfer such large amounts of data.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.24 no.2
• /
• pp.99-107
• /
• 2013

The surgical resection was occurred mainly in liver metastasis before the development of radiation therapy techniques. Recently, Radiation therapy is increased gradually due to the development of radiation dose delivery techniques. 18F-FDG PET image showed better sensitivity and specificity in liver metastasis detection. This image modality is important in the radiation treatment with planning CT for tumor delineation. In this study, we applied automatic image segmentation methods on PET image of liver metastasis and examined the impact of image factors on these methods. We selected the patients who were received the radiation therapy and 18F-FDG PET/CT in Korea Cancer Center Hospital from 2009 to 2012. Then, three kinds of image segmentation methods had been applied; The relative threshold method, the Gradient method and the region growing method. Based on these results, we performed statistical analysis in two directions. 1. comparison of GTV and image segmentation results. 2. performance of regression analysis for relation between image factor affecting image segmentation techniques. The mean volume of GTV was $60.9{\pm}65.9$ cc and the $GTV_{40%}$ was $22.43{\pm}35.27$ cc, and the $GTV_{50%}$ was $10.11{\pm}17.92$ cc, the $GTV_{RG}$ was $32.89{\pm}36.8$4 cc, the $GTV_{GD}$ was $30.34{\pm}35.77$ cc, respectively. The most similar segmentation method with the GTV result was the region growing method. For the quantitative analysis of the image factors which influenced on the region growing method, we used the standardized coefficient ${\beta}$, factors affecting the region growing method show GTV, $TumorSUV_{MAX/MIN}$, $SUV_{max}$, TBR in order. The result of the region growing (automatic segmentation) method showed the most similar result with the CT based GTV and the region growing method was affected by image factors. If we define the tumor volume by the auto image segmentation method which reflect the PET image parameters, more accurate and consistent tumor contouring can be done. And we can irradiate the optimized radiation dose to the cancer, ultimately.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
• /
• v.17 no.6
• /
• pp.587-595
• /
• 2011

In this paper, we focus on the issue of automatic selection for multi-level threshold, and we greatly improve the efficiency of Otsu's method for image segmentation based on genetic algorithm. We have investigated and evaluated the performance of the Otsu and Valley-emphasis threshold methods. Based on this observation we propose a method for automatic threshold method that segments an image into more than two regions with high performance and processing in real-time. Our paper introduced new peak detection, combines with evolution algorithm using MAGA (Modified Adaptive Genetic Algorithm) and HCA (Hill Climbing Algorithm), to find the best threshold automatically, accurately, and quickly. The experimental results show that the proposed evolutionary algorithm achieves a satisfactory segmentation effect and that the processing time can be greatly reduced when the number of thresholds increases.

• Proceedings of the IEEK Conference
• /
• 2003.11a
• /
• pp.449-452
• /
• 2003

This paper propose a extracting method of the region for image using segmentation and edge information. First propose algorithm extract information using canny edge detector and the image was divided by watershed segmentation. And it extract the mage with edge information by merging region. Finally we compare the proposed method with levelset method. In the result proposed method not only extract the image with accurate region but also reduce operation time.

• Progress in Medical Physics
• /
• v.15 no.2
• /
• pp.112-119
• /
• 2004

We tried to build human models based on medical images of live Korean, instead of using standard data of human body structures. Characteristics of mechanical structures of human bodies were obtained from medical images such as CT and MR images. For each constitutional part of mechanical structures CT images were analyzed in terms of gray levels and MR images were analyzed in terms of pulse sequence. Characteristic features of various mechanical structures were extracted from the analyses. Based on the characteristics of each structuring element we peformed image segmentation on CT and MR images. We delineated bones, muscles, ligaments and tendons from CT and MR images using image segmentation or manual drawing. For the image segmentation we compared the edge detection method, region growing method and intensity threshold method and applied an optimal compound of these methods for the best segmentation results. Segmented mechanical structures of the head/neck part were three dimensionally reconstructed.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
• /
• v.14 no.3
• /
• pp.1167-1187
• /
• 2020

With the development of medical imaging technology, image registration has been widely used in the field of disease diagnosis. The registration between different modal images of brain magnetic resonance (MR) is particularly important for the diagnosis of brain diseases. However, previous registration methods don't take advantage of the prior knowledge of bilateral brain symmetry. Moreover, the difference in gray scale information of different modal images increases the difficulty of registration. In this paper, a multimodal medical image registration method based on image segmentation and symmetric self-similarity is proposed. This method uses modal independent self-similar information and modal consistency information to register images. More particularly, we propose two novel symmetric self-similarity constraint operators to constrain the segmented medical images and convert each modal medical image into a unified modal for multimodal image registration. The experimental results show that the proposed method can effectively reduce the error rate of brain MR multimodal medical image registration with rotation and translation transformations (average 0.43mm and 0.60mm) respectively, whose accuracy is better compared to state-of-the-art image registration methods.