Segmenting Colour Images on the basis of a Fuzzy Hierarchical Approach
Jesús Chamorro Martínez, Daniel Sánchez Fernández, Belén Prados-Suárez, Elena Galán Perales, M.A. Vila · 2003
In this paper we deal with two problems related imprecision in colour image segmentation processes: decide whether a set of pixels verify the property to be homogeneously coloured, and represent the set of possible segmentations of an image at dieren t precision levels. In order solve the rst problem we introduce a measure of distance between colours in the CIE L a b space, that allows us measure the degree of homogeneity of two pixels p and q on the basis of the maximum distance between the colours of consecutive pairs of pixels in any path linking p and q. Since homogeneity is a matter of degree, we dene a (fuzzy) segmentation of an image as a set of fuzzy regions, each of them being a fuzzy subset of pixels, that we obtain by using a region growing technique. The membership degree of each pixel each region is calculated on the basis of our homogeneity measure. The second problem is solved by introducing a fuzzy similarity relation between the fuzzy regions in this initial segmentation. The dieren t -cuts of the similarity relation dene the set of precision levels, from which a nested hierarchy of fuzzy segmentations is nally obtained. Keyword: Colour image segmentation, fuzzy segmentation, hierarchical segmentation, colour distance.