USING PHYSICAL PRINCIPLES IN THE SEGMENTATION OF OBJECTS REPRESENTED IN IMAGES
Patrícia C. T. Gonçalves, João Manuel R. S. Tavares, Renato Natal Jorge · 2008
The goal of this work is to automatically extract the contour of an object represented in an image after manually defining an initial contour for it. This rough initial contour will then evolve until it equals the border of the desired object. The contour is modelled through a physical formulation, using the Finite Element Method, and its evolution to the desired final contour of the object to segment is governed by: internal forces, defined by the intrinsic physical characteristics selected for the model; and external forces, defined in function of the image features most suitable for the desired object. To build the physical model, an isoparametric finite element is employed and to obtain its evolution towards the object border the dynamic equilibrium equation is solved. 2.