A version of watershed algorithm

for color image segmentation

Md. Habibur Rahman (11-94853-2)

Master’s Thesis Presentation and Defense

Thesis Committee :
Prof. Dr. Md. Rafiqul Islam (Advisor)
Dr. Md. Saiful Azad (External)
Dr. Dip Nandi (Head of Graduate Program)
American International University-Bangladesh
June, 2013
1
 Outline
 Problem Definition
 Thesis Contributions

 Introduction

 Proposed Watershed Algorithm

 Image Quality Assessment (IQA) Metrics

 Results Analysis

 Conclusions

 List of publication

 References

2
 Problem Definition
 Over-segmentation problem in the existing
watershed algorithm
 Sensitive to noise

 High computational complexity

 Performance varies in different classes of

images

3
 Thesis Contributions
 An adaptive masking and a thresholding
mechanism over each color channel before
combining the segmentation from each
channel into the final one
 Overcome over-segmentation problem

 Computationally inexpensive

 Perform well in case of noisy image

 Perform better with respect to five IQA

metrics in 20 different classes of images

4
 Introduction
 What is digital image?
 Digital image processing

 How image is stored?

 Image Segmentation

 Why Image Segmentation?

 Color Image Segmentation Algorithms

5
 What is a digital image?
• A numeric
representation of a
two-dimensional
image as a finite set of
digital values
• Pixel values usually
represent intensity
levels or gray levels,
colors, heights, and
opacities [11].

11. R C Gonzalez and R E Woods, Digital Image Processing, 3rd Edition, Pearson, pp. 51 6
 Digital Image Processing
 An image can be defined as a two-
dimensional function, p (x, y)
 Where x and y are spatial (plane)
coordinated
 The amplitude of p at any pair of coordinates
(x, y) is called the intensity or gray level of
the image at that point

7
 How image is stored?
• In image, P (0, 0)
represents the top left
corner pixel
• P (X−1, 0) represents
the bottom left corner
pixel of the image
• In digital image, pixels
contain color value and
each pixel uses 8 bits or
1 Byte or 256 values [13]

13. H. Vankayalapati, "Evaluation of wavelet based linear subspace techniques for face recognition," Klagenfurt, 2008 8
 Image Segmentation
 It is a process to divide the digital image into
homogeneous and different meaningful
regions
 The main goal of image segmentation is to
cluster of pixels in the relevant regions
 It is used to recognize similar regions and
grouping the similar visual objects
 Property like grey level, color, intensity,
texture, shape, depth or motion from the
digital image
9
 Why Image Segmentation?
 We do image segmentation to separate
homogeneous area
 It requires everywhere for precise
segmentation if we want to analyze what
inside the image.
 It is separate objects and analyze each
object individually to check what it is.

10
Image Segmentation Algorithms
 Fuzzy C-Means (FCM)
• Partition a finite collection of pixels into a
collection of "C" fuzzy clusters [22]

 Region Growing (RG)

• Group of pixels with similar properties to form a
region
• For similarity measure, difference between a
pixel's intensity value and the region's mean [23]

22. M. Singha and K. Hemachandran, "Color Image Segmentation for Satellite Images", IJCSE, vol. 3(12), 2011.
23. M. Edman, "Segmentation Using a Region Growing Algorithm," Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2007. 11
Image Segmentation Algorithms
 Hill Climbing with K-Means (HKM)
• detects local maxima of clusters in global three-
dimensional color histogram of an image [28]
 Watershed (WS)
• It comes from geography
• It is that of a topographic relief which is flooded
by water
• Watershed lines being the divide lines of the
domains of attraction of rain falling over the
region [6]
28. R. Vijayanandh and G. Balakrishnan, "Hill climbing Segmentation with Fuzzy C-Means Based Human Skin Region
Detection using Bayes Rule," EJSR, Vol. 76(1), pp. 95-107, 2012. 6. X. Han, Y. Fu and H. Zhang, "A Fast Two-Step
Marker-Controlled Watershed Image Segmentation Method," Proceedings of ICMA, pp. 1375-1380, 2012 12
 Proposed Watershed Algorithm
• It can quickly calculate the
every region of the watershed
segmentation

• Image normalization
operation by Eq. 1

13
Proposed Watershed Algorithm
 Adaptive threshold determined by Eq. 2 and Eq. 3
based on Gray-threshold function

 N-dimensional convolution for smoothing image

 Adaptive masking operations by Eq. 4 and Eq. 5

14
Proposed Watershed Algorithm
 Impose Minima to create morphological process
image using Nucleus-masking (M2) on three color
channels

 Apply Watershed algorithm (Wn) on three color

channels

 Pixel labeling calculated by Ln = BWLABEL (Wn)

15
Proposed Watershed Algorithm
 Convert three channels into a RGB image for
visualizing labeled regions by Pn = label2rgb (Ln)

 R, G and B color channels (Pn) are added to generate

segmented image

16
Proposed Watershed Algorithm
 Applied canny edge detection method to detect
enclosed region boundary and remove all small
object from the combined three color channels

 The enclosed region boundary is superimposed on

original image in the final segmentation

17
 Quality Evaluation Metrics
 Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) is
calculated between two images by Eq. 6 [40].

 Mean Square Error (MSE) is calculated pixel-

by-pixel by adding up the squared difference of all
the pixels and dividing by the total pixel count
using the Eq. 7 [40].

 Image Quality Measure (CQM) is based on

color transformation from RGB to YUV.

40. C. Mythili and V. Kavitha, "Color Image Segmentation using ERKFCM," IJCA, Vol. 41(20), pp. 21-28, 2012 18
 Quality Evaluation Metrics
 Reversible YUV Color Transformation (RCT) that is
created from the JPEG2000 standard in Eq. 8

 PSNR of each YUV color channel (Y, U and V) is

calculated separately
 CQM value is calculated using the Eq. 9 [43].

 Riesz-transform based Feature Similarity

Metric (RFSIM) is based on the human vision
system (HVS) perceives an image mainly according
to its low-level features
43. Y. YALMAN and Đ. ERTÜRK, "A new color image quality measure based on yuv transformation and psnr for
human vision system,“ Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences, 2013, in press. 19
 Quality Evaluation Metrics
 Compute the similarity between two images f and g
 M1 and M2 is the result of edge detection performed
on f and g
 Then, the feature mask is defined as Eq. 10.

 Similarity between two feature maps fi (i = 1~5) and

gi at the corresponding location (x, y) is defined as
the Hilbert transform of a 1-D function in Eq. 11.

20
 Quality Evaluation Metrics
 To define similarity between feature maps fi and gi
by considering only key locations marked by mask M
and Hilbert transform of a 2-D function by Eq. 12

 RFSIM index computes between f and g image as

Eq. 13 [42]

 RFSIM range between [0, 1), the higher RFSIM

value indicates better image quality

42. L. Zhang, L. Zhang and X. Mou, "RFSIM: A Feature based image quality assessment metric using Riesz-
Transforms," Image Processing (ICIP), 17th IEEE International Conference, pp. 321-324, 2010. 21
 Results Analysis
 Visual Verification
• Comparative performance of the proposed MWS
method with four modified watershed methods
• Compared the results of the proposed algorithm
with three image segmentation algorithms
 Quantitative Verification
• Color image segmentation results with 20
different classes of images
• Performance of proposed method with three
different algorithms with respect to 5 IQA metrics

22
33. C. Zhang, S. Zhang, J. Wu, S. Han, "An improved watershed algorithm for color image segmentation,“ I CCSEE, pp.
69-72, 2012. 35. S. Li, J. Xu, J. Ren and T. Xu, "A Color Image Segmentation Algorithm by Integrating Watershed with
Region Merging," RSKT, LNAI 7414, pp. 167–173, 2012. 23
7. H. Tan, Z. Hou, X. Li, R. Liu and W. Guo, "Improved watershed algorithm for color image segmentation," Proc. of
SPIE Vol. 7495 74952Z-(1-8). 9. L. Gao, S. Yang, J. Xia, S. Wang, J. Liang and Y. Qin, "New Marker-Based Watershed
24
Algorithm," TENCON 2006.
25
26
27
28
 Conclusions
 A novel image segmentation method based on
adaptive threshold and masking operation with
watershed algorithm
 Compared the proposed MWS algorithm with four
modified watershed algorithms
 The results achieved using my technique ensure
accuracy and quality of the image in 20 different
classes of images in four segmentation algorithms
 Proposed method is less computational complexity,
which makes it appropriate for real-time application
 In future I am going to develop a robust algorithm
for the segmentation of color and video images
29
List of Publication related to this thesis

1) "Segmentation of Color Image using Adaptive

Thresholding and Masking with Watershed Algorithm,"
Presented at 2nd International Conference on
Informatics, Electronics & Vision (ICIEV), Dhaka
University, Bangladesh, ISBN: 978-1-4799-0399-3,
May 2013 (To appear in IEEE Xplore).
2) "A version of watershed algorithm for color image
segmentation," AIUB Journal of Science and
Engineering (AJSE), Bangladesh, Vol. 12(1), 2013
(accepted).

30
 Some Important References
[6] X. Han, Y. Fu and H. Zhang, "A Fast Two-Step Marker-Controlled Watershed Image Segmentation Method,"
Proceedings of ICMA, pp. 1375-1380, 2012.
[7] H. Tan, Z. Hou, X. Li, R. Liu and W. Guo, "Improved watershed algorithm for color image segmentation,"
Proc. of SPIE Vol. 7495 74952Z-(1-8).
[9] L. Gao, S. Yang, J. Xia, S. Wang, J. Liang, and Y. Qin, "New Marker-Based Watershed Algorithm," TENCON
2006.
[11] R. Gonzalez and R. Woods, “Digital Image Processing,” 3rd edition, Pearson Prentice Hall, 2007.
[13] H. Vankayalapati, "Evaluation of wavelet based linear subspace techniques for face recognition," Alpen-
Adria University and Institute for Smart System-Technologies, Klagenfurt, 2008.
[22] M. Singha and K. Hemachandran, "Color Image Segmentation for Satellite Images", IJCSE, vol. 3(12), 2011.
[23] M. Edman, "Segmentation Using a Region Growing Algorithm," Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, 2007.
[28] R. Vijayanandh and G. Balakrishnan, "Hill climbing Segmentation with Fuzzy C-Means Based Human Skin
Region Detection using Bayes Rule," EJSR, Vol. 76(1), pp. 95-107, 2012.
[33] C. Zhang, S. Zhang, J. Wu, S. Han, "An improved watershed algorithm for color image segmentation,"
International Conference on Computer Science and Electronics Engineering (ICCSEE), pp. 69-72, 2012.
[35] S. Li, J. Xu, J. Ren, and T. Xu, "A Color Image Segmentation Algorithm by Integrating Watershed with
Region Merging," RSKT, LNAI 7414, pp. 167–173, 2012.
[40] C. Mythili and V. Kavitha, "Color Image Segmentation using ERKFCM," International Journal of Computer
Applications (IJCA), Vol. 41(20), pp. 21-28, 2012.
[42] L. Zhang, L. Zhang, and X. Mou, "RFSIM: A Feature based image quality assessment metric using Riesz-
Transforms," Image Processing (ICIP), 17th IEEE International Conference, pp. 321-324, 2010.
[43] Y. YALMAN and Đ. ERTÜRK, "A new color image quality measure based on yuv transformation and psnr
for human vision system," Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences, 2013, in press.

31
Thank you 

32