International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page219

Intensity and Texture Gradient Based Boundary
Detection Algorithm for Medical Image
V. Sai Kumar
1
, V. Vijaya Kishore
2

1
(M.Tech student E.C.E Department, SITAMS/ JNTU Anantapur, A.P, India)
2
(Professor E.C.E Department, SITAMS/ JNTU Anantapur, A.P, India
ABSTRACT : In todays technological world
images plays a very important role. Images are
very helpful in several fields like non-destructive
testing. Medical diagnostics, surveillance and
military etc. in image analysis and computer vision
edge detection and boundary detection plays a very
fundamental role. For image interpretation tasks
and in image analysis processes the boundary of
image will provide valuable information. The main
objective behind the boundary detection is to detect
the shape or outline of object. Generally Image
segmentation is aimed to find the objects and
object boundaries in images and it assigns a label
in every pixel in an image such that pixels with the
same level share have certain virtual
characteristics. However finding the exact
boundary in images is a very difficult task. In this
paper we propose an efficient and robust technique
for the detection of boundaries in noisy images.
Our proposed method uses the information or data
from texture and intensity gradients. The texture
information will get using edge map model and
intensity gradients will get using the edge vector
gradient model. The proposed concept for
boundary detection and edge following technique is
efficient and as well as robust and it is applicable
to several kinds of medical images such as
magnetic resonance (MR) images, ultrasound
images, and computerized tomography images etc.
Finally the results for this proposed method shows
that the proposed method performs very well and
yields better performance than the classical
contour models.
Keywords - Edge vector field, Gradient, Canny
edge detectors, image segmentation, MRI images
I. INTRODUCTION
Today images are very helpful and play a very
important role in several applications like
surveillance, weather forecasting, medical
diagnostics, and non-destructive testing etc. Image
processing is nothing but one type of signal
processing unit, at which the input is an image such
as photograph and similarly the output may be
either an image or a set of parameters related to
those input image. In image analysis and as well as
in computer vision the boundary detection and
Edge detection plays a very primary role. Boundary
detection results important information for the
analysis of image interpretation [1]. In the era of
image analysis Boundary Detection, Segmentation,
clustering, Edge Detection Classification and
texture property extraction are most important
techniques or methods. But all these techniques of
image analysis are very complicated, since the
image has having more than one uniform region
with several homogenous sub images. Here
boundary of an image is defined as a shape or
outline of an object in the image and boundary is
used to represent a change in a pixel from one
object to another object. Similarly edge is defined
as a change in the features of an image like color or
brightness etc. However detecting a correct
boundary of an image in a non-homogeneity region
image is a very critical and a complex task. Before
performing the image boundary detection, the
segmentation of image is a primary step.
Segmentation is defined as the grouping of a set of
pixels which shares the similar characteristics like
intensity and texture. This refers to the set of pixels
which are mapped from the structures inside the
prostate and the background image. The mail
objective of the image segmentation is to find out
boundaries and objects in the images. Image
segmentation can be categorized into two main
categories.
1. Edge based approach
2. Region based approach
1.1 Edge based approach:
In Edge based approaches edge detection operators
like Sobel, Robert, Laplacian, Prewitt, and Canny
are used to detect the object boundaries and then by
using the edge information those boundaries will be
extracted. The strong weakness in edge based
approach is the resultant regions are not fully
connected since the edges need not be joined.
1.2 Region based approach:
In Region based approach, based on the properties
of image will partition the image into connected
regions. Here the image properties may be the
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page220

intensity values from the original images or the
computed values using on an image operator and
texture are unique to each region. Mostly well-
known region based methods are region growing,
clustering, thresholding, region splitting and region
merging [17].
Therefore image segmentation is a very important
task for analysis of image and the implementation
of image segmentation process is a very interesting
problem.
In this paper we propose a method for the detection
of boundary of an object in the non-homogeneity
region images using a novel edge following. We
uses edge vector gradient model and edge map
model for the purpose of edge following. The
complete information of an image regarding to
magnitudes and directions of image edges is
available through vector image model. The edge
map is obtained using the Laws of texture feature
[16] and the canny edge detection [13]. The vector
image model and the edge map are applied to select
the best edges.
The vector image model provides a more complete
description of an image by considering both
directions and magnitudes of image edges. From
the vector image model, a derivative-based edge
operator is applied to yield the edge field [9]. The
proposed edge vector field is generated by
averaging magnitudes and directions in the vector
image. The edge map is derived from Laws texture
feature [3] and the canny edge detection [3]. The
vector image model and the edge map are applied
to select the best edges. This paper is extended to
by providing an automatic, fast, and approximate
segmentation technique that avoids slowness in
locating and segmenting targeting location
problems by locating a bounding box, an axis-
parallel rectangle, around the tumor or edema on an
MR slice.
The rest of the paper is arranged as follows: section
II just describes about the elements of proposed
system and in section III we clearly describes about
each and every element of proposed system i.e.
Edge vector gradient, Edge mapping model, Edge
detection technique. Section III also explains about
Laws texture and canny edge detection clearly.
Finally section IV describes the analysis of
simulation results.

II. PROPOSED SYSTEM
To detect the boundary of an object in a non-
homogenous image boundary extraction algorithm
is used. There are three phases in Boundary
extraction algorithm.
1. Edge vector gradient
2. Edge map model
3. Edge following technique


Fig1 Block Diagram of proposed system

3.1 Edge Vector Gradient Calculation
The performance of proposed method is mainly
depends on the detecting the magnitude and
direction of image and it is sufficient to detect the
boundary of an image. To perform the vector
operations on input image we use Edge Vector
Gradient. For a given input image the edge vector
field is calculated as
|
.
|

\
|
+ =
|
|
.
|

\
|
c
c

c
c
~
+ =
2 2
,
) , ( ) , ( max
) , ( ) , ( 1
) ) , ( ) , ( (
1
) , (
j i C j i C n
j
x
y x f
i
y
y x f
n
v
j j i C i j i C
n
j i v
y x j i
y x

Where, n: the maximum number of pixels moving
towards either horizontal direction or vertical
direction.
C: the convolution between the input image and
corresponding mask difference
( ) ( )
( ) ( ) y x f G j i C
y x f G j i C
x y
y x
, ,
, ,
=
=

G
x
and G
y
are defined as Gaussian difference mask.
As discussed already, the Edge vector of an image
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page221

consists of magnitude and as well as direction of
edges and builds a stream of vector flowing around
an object completely. The direction and magnitude
are calculated from, i.e.
( )
( )
( )
( )
+ =

|
|
.
|

\
|
=
e
e

N j i
y x
r
N j i
x
y
r
j i C j i C
C
j i M
j i C
j i C
C
j i D
,
2 2
,
1
) , ( ) , (
1
,
) , (
) , (
tan
1
,

Cr is defined as the total number of pixels in the
neighborhood N.
3.2 Edge Map Model
Edge mapping model is used to detect the edges of
an object in image effectively. To select the best
edges of an image edge mapping model and vector
image model both are applied. Therefore the
proposed system yields more descriptive vectors
along the object edge than that of the original edge
vector field. The concept of Edge mapping model is
extracted from the texture and as well as canny
edge detection.
3.2.1 Laws texture:
Among all the types of texture filters Laws texture
filter performs well. The main aim behind Laws
texture is to create efficient filtered image from the
texture features. By convolving an input image
with each of the masks we can effectively construct
a best texture feature images of Laws texture.
However the output image is a resultant of
convolving input image with texture mask
Laws texture masks
L5 (Level) = [1 4 6 4 1]
E5 (Edge) = [-1 -2 0 2 1]
S5 (Spot) = [-1 0 2 0 -1]
R5 (Ripple) = [1- 4 6 -4 1]
Where,
(E5) (Gradient) responds to row or column step
edges.
(L5) (Gaussian) gives a center-weighted local
average.
(R5) (Gabor) detects ripples.
(S5) (LOG) detects spots.
3.2.2 Canny edge detection:
To detect the edges in an image accurately we use
canny edge detection method. It gives best results
especially for step edges corrupted by white
Gaussian noise. This edge detector is assumed to be
the output of a filter that reduces the noise and
locates the edges. Canny edge detection method
consists of following four continuous steps.
1. Convolution with Gaussian filter
2. Calculate the magnitude and direction of
gradient
3. Non-maximal suppression
4. Thresholding
Initially, to reduce the noise level in given image,
first it convolved with the Gaussian filter.
Magnitude and direction of the gradient of an
image is calculated in the second step. Third step
involves the non-maximal suppression to identify
the edges finally the fourth step is thresholding and
thresholding is used to detect and to link the edges.

3.3 Edge following Technique
Finally edge following technique is used to detect
the boundary of an object. Edge following
technique uses the information from previous edge
vector gradient and edge map models to detect
boundary of an object accurately. At the position (i,
j) of an image, the position of edges can be
calculated by 33 matrix
2 , 0 ), , ( ) , ( ) , ( ) , (
, , , ,
s s + + = c r c r zE c r yD c r xM c r L
j i j i j i j i
x, y, and z are defined as weight parameters and
designed to control the edge to flow around an
object.
An element in the L
i,j
indicates the strong edge in
the corresponding direction. The 33 matrices
) , ( ), , ( ), , (
, , ,
c r E c r D c r M
j i j i j i
is calculated as
follows:
) 1 , 1 ( ) , (
) 1 , 1 ( ) , (
1 ) , (
) , ( max
) 1 , 1 (
) , (
,
,
,
,
+ + =
+ +
=
+ +
=
c j r i E c r E
c j r i D j i D
c r D
j i M
c j r i M
c r M
j i
j i
j i
j i
t

) , ( ), , ( ), , (
, , ,
c r E c r D c r M
j i j i j i
are defined as the
average of the magnitude of and direction of the
edge vector gradient and edge map respectively.
And all these values are exists between 0 and 1
only. At each pixel the edge detection technique is
applied to identify the floe direction and then
followed by the direction of locations that
encounter two opposite directions of edge flow. If
any of the image attribute such as color, texture, or
other combination can be used to compute the edge
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page222

energy and direction of flow, this scheme provides
a general framework for boundary detection.

3.4 Initial position of edge following

For getting the effective and robust boundary
detection we use the concept of initial position. The
accuracy of the proposed system is depends on the
closeness of the initial position to desired
boundary. If the initial position is not closer to the
desired boundary then it yields to wrong convey. In
our proposed method the initial position is
calculated using following sequential steps.
1. Calculate the average magnitude [M (i, j)].
2. Calculate the density of edge length for
each pixel from an edge map.
The density of edge length [L (i, j)] in each pixel
can be calculated from
) , ( max
) , (
) , (
,
j i C
j i C
j i L
j i
=

3. Calculate the initial position map P (i, j)
from summation of average magnitude
and density of edge length.
( ) ) , ( ) , (
2
1
) , ( j i L j i M j i P + =

4. Thresholding of the initial position map.

However, the results of initial positions our method
are positions that are close to the edges of
interested areas. In contrast to the traditional Active
contour models, our model utilizes also the image
statistical information to halt the curve evolution on
the desired boundaries, which results in image that
is robust to noise. Moreover, our model can well
handle images with weak edges or without edges.
In addition, our proposed model can extract the
interior boundaries of the objects very easily by
setting the initial contour anywhere.

Image quality metrics: - Two error metrics are
used in order to compare various digital image
compression techniques in nature they are:-

1. The Mean Square Error (MSE) and
2. The probalistic Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR).

The MSE is the metric that is supposed to measure
squared error between the compressed and the
original digital image, on the other hand PSNR
which measures the peak error in given image that
can be mathematically written as
MSE =
PSNR = 20 * log10 (255 / sqrt (MSE))
Where I (x, y) is the original digital image, and I'(x,
y) is the reconstructed image which is undergone
through compression/decompression process and
finally M, N are their dimensions of the images.

Structural content metric measures closeness
(relationship) between two images also when it is
close to 1 there is no existence if two images and
they are similar.

IV. SIMULATION RESULTS

Our proposed algorithm is implemented in Matlab
7.0 on a 2.8-Hz Intel Pentium IV PC and the size of
the test image is 83X 65 pixels.

Fig 2 Input original real microscope cell image


Fig 3 Image attacked with noise
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page223


Fig 4 Image Recovered from noise

Fig 5 Segmentation results for a real microscope
cell image for Geodesic Active contour model
Figure 5. Active contour model for finding edge
boundary in presence with less efficiency since it
calculates internal energy and stops to repair
boundary calculates external energy to estimate
boundary which in turn requires more iterations to
find boundary of contours.
Proposed results

Fig 6 Input original real microscope cell image

Fig7 Image attacked with noise

Fig 8 Image Recovered from noise

Fig 9 Segmentation results for a real microscope
cell image for Proposed Efficient Edge Detection

Similarly figure 9 represents the proposed efficient
boundary detection method than in figure 5, since
here we are applied our proposed method with
minimum number of iterations to reach boundary
of a contour without wait to calculate weak edges
as we are using efficient edge detectors like canny
for finding weak edges in presence of noise.


Fig 10 Processing time
Fig 10 shows proposed method taking only 5.08sec
to find boundary of contour compare to Geodesic
Active contour method taking 8.80 sec.
International Journal of Computer Trends and Technology (IJCTT) volume 6 number 4 Dec 2013

ISSN: 2231-2803 http://www.ijcttjournal.org Page224



Fig 11 Iterations to final boundary
Fig 11 shows proposed method set at nearly 40
iterations to find boundary of contour whereas
Geodesic Active contour method takes almost 210
iterations to complete detection of edges.

TECNIQUE MSE PSN
R
NC
C
SC NA
E
EXISTED 8.08
16e+
003
3.111
3dB
0.9
726
0.35
73
2.21
9
PROPOSED 3.17
65e+
004
9.724
6dB
2.7
108
0.08
54
1.14
24

By observing results we can conclude that PSNR,
SC and NAE is better in proposed technique to
show better and efficient technique.

IV. CONCLUSION
We have proposed a new edge following technique
for boundary detection and applied it to object
segmentation problem in medical images. The
proposed technique was applied to detect the object
boundaries in several types of noisy images where
the ill-defined edges were encountered. truths of
interesting objects in different types of medical
images including prostates in ultrasound images,
left ventricles in cardiac MR images, aortas in
cardiovascular MR images, and knee joints in CT
images. Besides the visual inspection, we applied
for two cells to find its boundary for two contours
which parallel completes edge detection for both in
same time and results of detecting the object
boundaries in noisy images show that the proposed
technique is much better than the other contour
models. The results of the running time on several
sizes of images also show that our method is more
efficient than the other contour models. We have
successfully applied the edge following technique
to detect ill-defined object boundaries in medical
images that takes less iterations to detect
boundaries in presence of noise and less processing
time to do it, moreover can be applied not only for
medical imaging, but can also be applied to any
image processing problems in which ill-defined
edge detection is encountered and also image
quality metrics are judged accordingly.
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BIO DATA

V.Sai Kumar is pursing M.Tech in department of
ECE, Sreenivasa Institute of Technology and
Management Studies, Chittoor. He has done his
B.Tech in ECE in the year 2011.He is interest on
research Digital Image Processing.

Vijaya Kishore, Professor in Dept. of ECE,
SITAMS. He received B Tech and M Tech degrees
from S.V. University and currently doing his
research work in Biomedical Signal Processing-
Applications on medical image to receive Ph.D.
from S V University, Tirupathi. He presented and
published 7 Papers in various national and
international conferences and journals, and he is a
life time member of IETE / ISTE.