Variational Methods For Image Segmentation

Variational Methods in Image Segmentation

This book contains both a synthesis and mathematical analysis of a wide set of algorithms and theories whose aim is the automatic segmen tation of digital images as well as the understanding of visual perception. A common formalism for these theories and algorithms is obtained in a variational form. Thank to this formalization, mathematical questions about the soundness of algorithms can be raised and answered. Perception theory has to deal with the complex interaction between regions and "edges" (or boundaries) in an image: in the variational seg mentation energies, "edge" terms compete with "region" terms in a way which is supposed to impose regularity on both regions and boundaries. This fact was an experimental guess in perception phenomenology and computer vision until it was proposed as a mathematical conjecture by Mumford and Shah. The third part of the book presents a unified presentation of the evi dences in favour of the conjecture. It is proved that the competition of one-dimensional and two-dimensional energy terms in a variational for mulation cannot create fractal-like behaviour for the edges. The proof of regularity for the edges of a segmentation constantly involves con cepts from geometric measure theory, which proves to be central in im age processing theory. The second part of the book provides a fast and self-contained presentation of the classical theory of rectifiable sets (the "edges") and unrectifiable sets ("fractals").

Variational Methods in Image Processing

Variational Methods in Image Processing presents the principles, techniques, and applications of variational image processing. The text focuses on variational models, their corresponding Euler–Lagrange equations, and numerical implementations for image processing. It balances traditional computational models with more modern techniques that solve the latest challenges introduced by new image acquisition devices. The book addresses the most important problems in image processing along with other related problems and applications. Each chapter presents the problem, discusses its mathematical formulation as a minimization problem, analyzes its mathematical well-posedness, derives the associated Euler–Lagrange equations, describes the numerical approximations and algorithms, explains several numerical results, and includes a list of exercises. MATLAB® codes are available online. Filled with tables, illustrations, and algorithms, this self-contained textbook is primarily for advanced undergraduate and graduate students in applied mathematics, scientific computing, medical imaging, computer vision, computer science, and engineering. It also offers a detailed overview of the relevant variational models for engineers, professionals from academia, and those in the image processing industry.

Variational Methods in Image Segmentation