Image Segmentation

Image Segmentation
• It is a stage of transition from image processing
methods whose inputs and outputs are images,
to method in which the inputs are images but
the outputs are attributes extracted from those
images.
• Segmentation refers to the process of
partitioning an image into multiple region.
• Image segmentation is typically used to locate
objects and boundaries in images.
 Image Segmentation
• We have
 Image Segmentation
• Segmentation impacts a number of domains, from
the filmmaking industry to the field of medicine.
• Image segmentation is also used to track objects in
a sequence of images and to classify terrains, like
petroleum reserves, in satellite images.
• Some medical applications of segmentation include
the identification of injured muscle, the
measurement of bone and tissue, and the detection
of suspicious structures to aid radiologists 
Image Segmentation
 Image Segmentation
• One way to view segmentation is clustering, where pixels
sharing certain features such as color, intensity, or texture
are grouped together and represented as a single entity.
• The Gestalt theory provided an approach to image
segmentation with a basis in psychology, accounting for
factors that cause people to see things as a "unified whole"
to extract meaningful information.
• The fundamental viewpoint of the German Gestalt theorists
can be summarized by what Gestalt psychologist Kurt Koffka
stated, "The whole is other than the sum of the parts"
 Image Segmentation
• They identified proximity, similarity, common
fate, common region, parallelism, symmetry,
continuity, and closure as the factors that
make people group certain visual elements
together. However, it is difficult to translate
these factors into algorithms.
 Image Segmentation
• The goal of clustering is to group the pixels in
an image into "clusters" that are similar in
some respect. For example, clustering could
involve choosing a certain number of cluster
centers, which are representative of the
different pixel intensities in the image and
assigning each pixel in the image to the center
it is the closest or the most similar to.
 Image Segmentation
• There are several clustering methods, three of
which are introduced below. In the examples,
we are measuring "similarity" by Euclidean
distance.
• Hierarchical Agglomerative Clustering
(HAC): a bottom-up algorithm
 Image Segmentation
• The agglomerative clustering is the most common
type of hierarchical clustering used to group objects
in clusters based on their similarity. It’s also known
as AGNES (Agglomerative Nesting). The algorithm
starts by treating each object as a singleton cluster. 
 Next, pairs of clusters are successively merged until
all clusters have been merged into one big cluster
containing all objects.  The result is a tree-based
representation of the objects
 Image Segmentation
• Agglomerative clustering works in a “bottom-
up” manner. That is, each object is initially
considered as a single-element cluster (leaf).
At each step of the algorithm, the two clusters
that are the most similar are combined into a
new bigger cluster (nodes). This procedure is
iterated until all points are member of just one
single big cluster (root).
Image Segmentation
 Image Segmentation
• K-means clustering is one of the simplest and
popular unsupervised machine learning algorithms.
• Typically, unsupervised algorithms make inferences
from datasets using only input vectors without
referring to known, or labelled, outcomes.
• “the objective of K-means is simple: group similar
data points together and discover underlying
patterns. To achieve this objective, K-means looks
for a fixed number (k) of clusters in a dataset.”
 Image Segmentation
• A cluster refers to a collection of data points aggregated
together because of certain similarities.
• You’ll define a target number k, which refers to the number of
centroids you need in the dataset. 
• Every data point is allocated to each of the clusters through
reducing the in-cluster sum of squares.
• the K-means algorithm identifies k number of centroids, and
then allocates every data point to the nearest cluster, while
keeping the centroids as small as possible.
• The ‘means’ in the K-means refers to averaging of the data;
that is, finding the centroid.
 Difference between K means and
Hierarchical Clustering
• k-means is method of cluster analysis using a
pre-specified no. of clusters. It requires
advance knowledge of ‘K’. 
• Hierarchical clustering also known as
hierarchical cluster analysis (HCA) is also a
method of cluster analysis which seeks to
build a hierarchy of clusters without having
fixed number of cluster. 
 Image Segmentation
• Grab Cat
• A successful segmentation of an image should
allow us to separate objects from the
background and transfer them from one image
to another. Here, we can segment pictures of
cats using the K means algorithm (K = 5) and
transfer the adorable felines onto different
backgrounds.
• Picture and background:
 Image Segmentation
• Segmented: The pixels are partitioned into five
groups, shown below. You can select the groups
that form the kitten portion, discard the
background (image 5, in this case), and move
the segmented parts onto a separate
background.
• Final result: A kitty sleeping on a leaf!
 Image Segmentation
• Picture and background:

Segmented: Only the segmented pixels in image

1 need to be removed since the rest are a part
of the kitten.
Final result: A gargantuan kitten on a beach!