(IJCSIS) International Journal of Computer Science and Information Security,
Vol. 11, No. 10, October 2013
fMRI image Segmentation using conventional
methods versus Contextual Clustering
1
Suganthi D., and 2Purushothaman S.,
1 2
Suganthi D., Research Scholar, Dr.Purushothaman S,
Department of Computer Science, Professor, PET Engineering College, Vallioor, India-627117.
Mother Teresa Women’s University,
Kodaikanal, Tamilnadu, India-624101,
Abstract- Image segmentation plays a vital role in
medical imaging applications. Many image
segmentation methods have been proposed for the
process of successive image analysis tasks in the last
decades. The paper has considered fMRI segmentation
inspite of existing techniques to segment the fMRI
slices. In this paper an fmri image segmentation using
contextual clustering method is presented. Matlab
software ‘regionprops’ function has been used as one of
the criteria to show performance of CC. The CC
segmentaion shows more segmented objects with least
discontuinty within the objects in the fMRI image.
From the experimental results, it has been found that,
the Contextual clustering method shows a better
segmentation when compared to other conventional
segmentation methods.
Keywords: Contextual clustering; segmentation; fMRI
image.
I. INTRODUCTION
Image segmentation is the process of partitioning
/ subdividing a digital image into multiple
meaningful regions or sets of pixels regions with
respect to a particular application. The segmentation
is based on measurements taken from the image and
might be grey level, color, texture, depth or motion.
The result of image segmentation is a set of segments
that collectively cover the entire image. All the pixels
in region are similar with respect to some
characteristic or computed property, such as color,
intensity, or texture. For any object in an image, there
are many 'features' which are interesting points on the
object that can be extracted to provide a "feature"
description of the object. Image segmentation is done
using various edge detection techniques such as
Sobel, Prewitt, Roberts, Canny, LoG,
MRI Segmentation provides great importance in
research and clinical applications. There are many
95
methods that exist to segment the brain. Conventional
methods like sobel, canny, log, zerocross, and prewitt
use pure image processing techniques that need
human interaction for accurate and reliable
segmentation. Unsupervised methods, can segment
the brain with high precision. For this reason,
unsupervised methods are preferred over
conventional methods. Many unsupervised methods
such as Fuzzy c-means, Finite Gaussian Mixture
Model, Artificial Neural Networks, etc. are available.
II. RELATED WORK
Bueno et al. 2000, described an image-based
method founded on mathematical morphology to
facilitate the segmentation of cerebral structures on
3D magnetic resonance images (MRIs). Jose et al,
2003, descried parametric image segmentation that
consists of finding a label field which defines a
partition of an image into a set of non overlapping
regions and the parameters of the models that
describe the variation of some property within each
region. A Bayesian formulation is presented, based
on the key idea of using a doubly stochastic prior
model for the label field, which allows one to find
exact optimal estimators for both this field and the
model parameters by the minimization of a
differentiable function.
Liu, 2006, presented a new level set based
solution for automatic medical image segmentation.
Wee et al, 2006, described accurate segmentation of
magnetic resonance (MR) images of the brain. They
broadly divided current MR brain image
segmentation algorithms into three categories:
classification based, region-based, and contour-based.
They showed that by incorporating two key ideas into
the conventional fuzzy C-means clustering algorithm,
they are able to take into account the local spatial
context and compensate for the intensity non
uniformity (INU) artifact during the clustering
process. Xiangrong et al, 2010, described clustering
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algorithms in tissue segmentation in MRI. The
authors proposed an approach to tissue segmentation
of 3D brain MRI using semi-supervised spectral
clustering. Yan Li and Zheru Chi, 2005, described
magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as an advanced
medical imaging technique providing rich
information about the human soft tissue anatomy.
The goal of magnetic resonance (MR) image
segmentation is to accurately identify the principal
tissue structures in these image volumes. A new
unsupervised MR image segmentation method based
on self-organizing feature map (SOFM) network has
been presented. Yongyue et al, 2001, stated that the
finite mixture (FM) model is the most commonly
used model for statistical segmentation of brain
magnetic resonance (MR) images because of its
simple mathematical form and the piecewise constant
nature of ideal brain MR images. They proposed a
hidden Markov random field (HMRF) model, which
is a stochastic process generated by a MRF whose
state sequence cannot be observed directly but which
can be indirectly estimated through observations.
Zavaljevski et al, 2000 described MR brain
image segmentation into several tissue classes is of
significant interest to visualize and quantify
individual anatomical structures. Zhang, 2004 stated
that image segmentation plays a crucial role in many
medical imaging applications. They presented a novel
algorithm for fuzzy segmentation of magnetic
resonance imaging (MRI) data  of the Laplacian function is made using the mask
 
III. MATERIALS AND METHODOLOGY
The Internet Brain Segmentation Repository
(IBSR) provides manually-guided expert
segmentation results along with magnetic resonance
brain image data. fMRI slice images have been
obtained from IBSR for use in this research work.
Table 1 presents two figures (full slice and cropped
slice used for segmentation analysis).
Table 1 fMRI slice
Region cropped used
segmentation analysis
Full slice image
A Sobel Operator: It performs 2-D spatial
gradient measurement on an image and so
emphasizes regions of high spatial frequency that
correspond to edges. The convolution masks of Sobel
operator are as shown Table 2, which are used to
obtain the gradient magnitude of the image from the
original.
Table 2. Sobel Mask
B. Prewitt Operator: The prewitt operator is an
approximate way to estimate the magnitude and
orientation of an edge. The convolution mask of
Prewitt operator is shown in Table 3.
Table 3. Prewitt Mask
C. Roberts Operator: It performs 2-D spatial
gradient measurement on an image. It highlights
regions of high spatial frequency which often
correspond to edges. The cross convolution mask is
shown in Table 4
Table 4 Roberts Mask
D. Laplacian of Guassian (LoG) Operator: It is a
second order derivative. The digital implementation
given in Table 5.
Table 5Laplacian of Guassian (LoG) Operator
E. Canny Operator: It is a method to find edges
by isolating noise from the image without affecting
the features of the edges in the image and then
applying the tendency to find the edges and the
critical value for threshold.
F. Contextual clustering
Image segmentation plays an important role in
image analysis and computer vision and it is
considered as one of the major obstruction in the
for
development of image processing technology.
Recently there has been considerable interest among
researchers in statistical clustering techniques in
image segmentation was inspired by the methods of
statistical physics. These methods were developed to
study the equilibrium properties of large, lattice
based systems consisting of interacting components
as identical. In a clustering technique for image
segmentation, each pixel is associated with one of the
finite number of categories to form disjoint regions.
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The contextual clustering based algorithms are

assumed to be drawn from standard normal
distribution. It segments a data into category 1 (ω0)
and category 2 (ω1).
The following are the steps adopted for
implementing the contextual clustering algorithm for
segmenting the fMRI slice image
(i) Define decision parameter Tcc (positive) and Fig. 1. Sample FMRI Fig. 2 Segmentation by
weight of neighborhood information β (positive). Let image ‘Sobel’ method
Nn be the total number of data in the neighborhood.
Let Zi be the data itself, i.
(ii) Classify data with zi>Tα to ω1 and data to ω0.
Store the classification to C0 and C1.
(iii) For each data i, count the number of data ui,
belonging to class ω1 in the neighborhood of data i.
Assume that the data outside the range belong to ω0.

(iv) Classify data with to ω1 Fig 3.Segmentation by’ Fig 4.Segmentation by’
and other data to ω0. Store the classification to Prewitt’ method Roberts’ method
variable C2.
(v) If C2 ≠C1 and C2 ≠ C0, copy C1 to C0, C2 to
C1 and return to step iii, otherwise stop and return to
C2.
The contextual clustering implementation is as
follows:
Step 1: Read a Pattern (fmri image feature).
Step 2: Sort the values of the pattern. Fig. 5 Segmentation by Fig 6.Segmentation by
Step 3: Find the Median of the Pattern Cm. ‘Log’ method Zero crossing method
Step 4: Find the number of values greater than
the Median Values, Um.
Step 5: Calculate CC using Cm + (beta/Tcc) * (Um
– (bs/2)).
Step 6: Assign CC as the segmented values.

IV. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Earlier researchers had used different metrics to Fig. 7 Segmentation by Fig. 8 Segmentation by
evaluate the segmentation accuracy. In this paper, we ‘Canny’ method Contextual clustering
have used ‘bwlabel’ and ‘Regionprops’ to evaluate
the accuracy of segmentation and it has been found
that CC segmentation is much better when compared
Table 2 Outptuts of ‘bwlabel’ function of ‘Matlab 2010’
to that of remaining segmentations mentioned in this
work.
No Method Objects detected
Figure 1 shows fmri slice. Figures (2-8) show the
segmentation by ‘Sobel’, ‘Prewitt’, ‘Roberts’, ‘Log’, 1 Sobel 12
‘Zero crossing’, ‘Canny’, ‘CC’ methods. Except CC
method, in all other segmentation methods, the 2 Prewitt 11
number of objects are more and , there are some
3 Robertz 8
objects segmented are not clear. Matlab ‘bwlabel’
function has been used and the number objects for 4 Log 64
each method is shown in Table 6. In addition to
.bwlabel’, the ‘Regionprops’ command has been used 5 Zerocross 64
to find out correct number of segmented objects

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6 Canny 32 Suganthi D., is pursuing her PhD

from Mother Teresa Women’s
University, Kodikanal, India.
7 Contextual Clustering 24

V. CONCLUSION
The main purpose of proposing contextual Dr.S.Purushothaman completed his
clustering method is to improve segmentation of PhD from Indian Institute of
fMRI images. The supervised contextual clustering Technology Madras, India in 1995.
He has 133 publications to his credit.
extracts features from the fMRI slice that represents He has 19 years of teaching
information in a given window. The algorithm experience. Presently he is working
involves least computation in the segmentation of as Professor in PET Engineering
fMRI slice. The advantages of CC segmentation is college , India
that this method uses neighboring information and
assured segmentation of minimum one object of fmri
image is possible.
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