Hierarchy in picture segmentation: a stepwise optimization approach
- 1 February 1989
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence
- Vol. 11 (2) , 150-163
- https://doi.org/10.1109/34.16711
Abstract
A segmentation algorithm based on sequential optimization which produces a hierarchical decomposition of the picture is presented. The decomposition is data driven with no restriction on segment shapes. It can be viewed as a tree, where the nodes correspond to picture segments and where links between nodes indicate set inclusions. Picture segmentation is first regarded as a problem of piecewise picture approximation, which consists of finding the partition with the minimum approximation error. Then, picture segmentation is presented as an hypothesis-testing process which merges only segments that belong to the same region. A hierarchical decomposition constraint is used in both cases, which results in the same stepwise optimization algorithm. At each iteration, the two most similar segments are merged by optimizing a stepwise criterion. The algorithm is used to segment a remote-sensing picture, and illustrate the hierarchical structure of the picture.Keywords
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