METHOD FOR SEGMENTING A SOURCE IMAGE
First Claim
1. Method to classify the pixels of a source image describing an object on a background, said method being carried out by a processing unit of an image segmentation system, said processing unit cooperating with storage means, said method comprising a step to produce and store in said storage means a likelihood representation of said source image associating a likelihood attribute with each pixel of the source image, the value of which corresponds to a probability that said pixel describes the object rather than the background, said step comprising:
- a step to initialise the respective values of the probability attributes to a predetermined value indicating that the pixel is undetermined;
a step to detect a transition between first and second pixel regions respectively describing the object and the background, according to a given sensitivity parameter and producing then storing in the storage means a transition representation of the source image associating with each pixel of the source image a transition attribute indicating whether the pixel corresponds to a detected transition or not;
a step to estimate the respective probabilities to describe the object rather than the background of pixels for which the respective distance separating them respectively from a pixel corresponding to a detected transition is less than or equal to a predetermined value and to replace the likelihood attribute values respectively associated with them by said estimates.
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Abstract
The present invention concerns a method for segmenting a source image containing an object on a background. The invention produces a possibly binary representation according to which each pixel is associated with an attribute indicating that the pixel describes the object or the background. The segmentation of the image is based on a sub-process to estimate the respective probabilities of describing the object rather than the background of pixels of interest alone—i.e. those located in the proximity of transitions between pixel regions describing the object and those describing the background. A representation RV is associated with said image to indicate said probabilities.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. Method to classify the pixels of a source image describing an object on a background, said method being carried out by a processing unit of an image segmentation system, said processing unit cooperating with storage means, said method comprising a step to produce and store in said storage means a likelihood representation of said source image associating a likelihood attribute with each pixel of the source image, the value of which corresponds to a probability that said pixel describes the object rather than the background, said step comprising:
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a step to initialise the respective values of the probability attributes to a predetermined value indicating that the pixel is undetermined; a step to detect a transition between first and second pixel regions respectively describing the object and the background, according to a given sensitivity parameter and producing then storing in the storage means a transition representation of the source image associating with each pixel of the source image a transition attribute indicating whether the pixel corresponds to a detected transition or not; a step to estimate the respective probabilities to describe the object rather than the background of pixels for which the respective distance separating them respectively from a pixel corresponding to a detected transition is less than or equal to a predetermined value and to replace the likelihood attribute values respectively associated with them by said estimates. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification