Creating and sharing knowledge for telecommunications

Image segmentation towards new image representation methods

Cortez, D. ; Nunes, P. ; Sequeira, M. ; Pereira, F.

Signal Processing: Image Communication Vol. 6, Nº 6, pp. 485 - 498, February, 1995.

ISSN (print): 0923-5965
ISSN (online):

Scimago Journal Ranking: (in )

Digital Object Identifier: 10.1016/0923-5965(94)00031-D

Abstract
Very low bit-rate video coding has recently become one of the most important areas of image communication and a large variety of applications have already been identified. Since conventional approaches are reaching a saturation point, in terms of coding efficiency, a new generation of video coding techniques, aiming at a deeper “understanding” of the image, is being studied. In this context, image analysis, particularly the identification of objects or regions in images (segmentation), is a very important step. This paper describes a segmentation algorithm based on split and merge. Images are first simplified using mathematical morphology operators, which eliminate perceptually less relevant details. The simplified image is then split according to a quad tree structure and the resulting regions are finally merged in three steps: merge, elimination of small regions and control of the number of regions.