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Abstract
A statistical approach based on the coordinated clusters representation of images is used for classification and
recognition of textured images. The ability of the descriptor to capture spatial statistical features of an image is ex-
ploited. A binarization needed for image preprocessing is done using, but not restricted to, a fuzzy clustering algorithm.
A normalized spectrum histogram of the coordinated cluster representation is used as a unique feature vector, and a
simple minimum distance classifier is used for classification purposes. Using the size and the number of subimages for
prototype generation and the size of the test images as the parameters in the learning and recognition phases, we es-
tablish the regions of reliable classification in the space of subimage parameters. The results of classification tests show
the high performance of the proposed method that may have industrial application for texture classification.
Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
0167-8655/03/$ - see front matter Ó 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
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22 R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31
Texture classification consists of a learning and a tion (CCR) of images. The method captures
recognition phase, as described by Tomita and spatial statistical features of an image by means of
Tsuji (1990). In the first, a set of features is extracted corresponding histogram of CCR and does not
from a set of texture images with known class need explicit calculation of any single or joint
labels, characterizing a specific class with a feature statistics. In this work we use the histogram of the
vector obtained. Feature extraction techniques for coordinated clusters representation of images as
texture description and analysis can be classified the unique feature vector that constitutes the core
into four major categories: statistical, model based, of the classification method. The use of the method
signal processing and structural description (see needs a previous binarization of each grey level
Tuceryan and Jain (1993)). Then, in the recognition image that is done by means of, but not restricted
phase, once a feature vector for each class is found to, a fuzzy clustering algorithm. A simple mini-
and the feature vector of any input image is com- mum distance classifier is used for classification in
puted, one of the known classifiers is used to assign this paper.
the image to the category with the best match. In The paper is organized as follows. Section 2
both cases the fundamental problem is to use a describes briefly the coordinated cluster transform
suitable representation of an image in order to ex- of binary images and its mathematical back-
tract an adequate feature vector. ground. In Section 3 we outline an approach to
Complexity in texture analysis arises from the texture images classification and a binarization
quasi-statistical properties of textures, requiring needed for an image preprocessing is also dis-
specific methods to process this kind of images. cussed. The classification setup and experimental
For natural textures, like metallographic or min- results are given in Section 4. Conclusions and
eral structure, woven fabric, or biological tissues, directions of future work are given finally in
statistical characterization seems to be most ade- Section 5.
quate. Statistical methods analyze textures by es-
timating a set of statistics from the distributions of
the local features. Depending on the number of 2. Coordinated clusters representation of images
pixels taken into account to compute the local
feature it is said to be first-order, second-order or Recently a model for binary image representa-
higher-order statistics. Many of the approaches to tion called the coordinated clusters transform or
texture analysis presents the texture measures by representation (CCR) was proposed by Kurmy-
single values, such as means, variances, etc. When shev and Cervantes (1996) and Kurmyshev and
these values are used as components of feature Soto (1996), in which a binary image can be
vectors, important information contained in the characterized by a histogram of the occurrence of
distribution function of images might be lost. The pattern units. In this work, this histogram is used
distributions of joint occurrences of pairs and as a descriptor of textures.
higher order n-tiples of features give better results In order to avoid some complicated mathe-
than distributions of single features (Thomson and matical notations, we describe CCR in an algo-
Foster, 1997). Most commonly used statistical rithmic way. Let S a ¼ fsa ðl; mÞg be a matrix of
methods include the calculus of co-occurrence binary image intensities (binary pixels) where l ¼
matrices introduced by Haralick et al. (1973), two- 1; 2; . . . ; L and m ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; M, N ¼ L M and
point probability density functions (see Goon and a ¼ 1; 2; . . . ; 2N is the binary image index. In order
Rolland (1999)), and grey level differences (Wes- to calculate the CCR of a binary image S a it is
zka et al., 1976; Unser, 1986), with a variety of required first to establish a rectangular window of
modifications later on, like the local binary pat- W ¼ I J pixels (I < L and J < M) and then scan
terns by Ojala et al. (1996) and the signed differ- sequentially by means of this window all over the
ences by Ojala et al. (2000). image S a with one pixel steps. Given a binary
We propose a framework for texture classifica- image S a , the coordinated cluster transformation
tion based on the coordinated cluster representa- generates the histogram of occurrence of pixel
R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31 23
Fig. 1. Window binary pattern and its binary coded decimal as The second theorem establishes the relation
a
the index of CCR histogram. between HðI;J Þ ðbÞ and spatial correlation moments
24 R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31
of nth order (nth order statistics) of a binary image When a correlation distance is large, the scanning
S a . According to the second theorem, the histo- window has to be proportionally large too. Then
a
gram HðI;J Þ ðbÞ contains all information about the CCR histogram becomes rather large and com-
n-point correlation moments of the image S a if and plicated for computer management. One practical
only if the separation vectors between n pixels fit way to reconcile the two contradictory require-
into the scanning window, that is a distribution ments (information preservation and manageabil-
a
function FðI;J Þ ðbÞ provides a sufficient information ity of CCR) is to reduce the scale of images to be
about an n-point joint probability functions. classified.
Fig. 3. A 256 grey-level image and its binarization with the thresholds: (b) 51; (c) 59; (d) 67; (e) 75 and (f) 83.
26 R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31
the distribution functions of images are sparse and generation. As an example of textures after bina-
for practical purposes we can reduce the number rization, Fig. 5 shows the images of Fig. 4 after the
of features significantly. We consider the Ham- fuzzy c-means algorithm is used.
ming distance between points in the space of CCR In the learning phase, sets of square subimages
distribution functions as the measure of distinction are randomly taken from each primary image, the
between images S a and S b : CCR for each subimage is calculated and then the
X b prototype of each set is computed.
dðI;J Þ ðF a ; F b Þ ¼ a
jFðI;J Þ ðbÞ FðI;J Þ ðbÞj: ð5Þ
In the first series of experiments we analyzed the
b
dependence of the error rate in classification of
Once the CCR distribution function for the test texture images due to the change of parameters in
a
image FðI;J Þ ðbÞ is determined, then the distance of the learning phase, the size of each subimage and
a
FðI;J Þ ðbÞ from each one of the class prototypes the number of subimages used for prototype gen-
p a
FðI;J Þ ðb; Np Þ is computed. The image S is assigned eration. In each recognition test, a set of 200 test
into the class p if texture images is formed by 10 groups of 20 square
0
subimages randomly taken from each primary
dðI;J Þ ðF a ; F p Þ ¼ min
0
dðI;J Þ ðF a ; F p Þ image. If a test subimage taken from a given pri-
p
! mary image is assigned to the class generated by
X p0 the same primary image, then the classification is
a
¼ min jFðI;J Þ ðbÞ FðI;J Þ ðb; Np Þj
0 :
0 p
b considered to be correct. Otherwise, we have a
classification error.
ð6Þ
Experiments were done for each of the five
given sizes of test subimages and for different
combinations of the two parameters considered in
4. Experimental results prototype generation, Np and Sp , yielding a total of
5 4 5 ¼ 100 different tests. For each test new
Two series of experiments are used to evaluate subimages are calculated for learning and recog-
the performance of the described method. In par- nition purposes. This procedure was repeated five
ticular, we look for the size of subimages in times for averaging purposes, yielding a total of
learning and recognition phases that still keep the 500 classification tests. The number of test images
necessary information about texture and provide incorrectly assigned was obtained for each test.
adequate classification results. Also, we try to find The performance of first series of classification
how many of these subimages are required for tests is presented in Fig. 6 as classification error
computing a representative prototype distribution (%error) against Np and Sp for each given St . The
function for a texture class. In classification tests plots show that the classification error depends
we use a scanning window of 3 3 pixels (I ¼ 3 very little on Np P 5 and Sp P 48 48 for the test
and J ¼ 3), resulting in 512-dimensional feature image size St P 48 48, the misclassification rate
vector. Three independent variables are consid- being near 0%. For St ¼ 128 128, the misclassi-
ered: (i) the number of subimages used for proto- fication is 0% exactly in the range of parameters
type generation, Np ¼ 15, 10, 5 and 3, (ii) the size Np P 5 and Sp P 48 48.
of subimages used for prototype generation, Sp ¼ In the second series of experiments the texture
128 128, 64 64, 48 48, 32 32 and 24 24 database was the same as used in experiment 1.
pixels, and (iii) the size of test subimages, St ¼ For each given Np we studied the dependence of
128 128, 64 64, 48 48, 32 32 and 24 24 classification error against Sp , the size of the sub-
pixels. images used in the prototype computing and St ,
We consider a texture database consisting of the size of test images. In the recognition phase,
P ¼ 10 sample images (256 256 pixels, 8 bits) given Sp and St , a set of 200 test texture images
taken from the Brodatz (1966) album (see Fig. 4). was formed by ten groups of 20 square sub-
Each primary image is used as a source for a class images taken randomly from each primary image.
R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31 27
Fig. 4. Sample images (Brodatz D9, D16, D19, D24, D29, D38, D68, D84, D92 and D112) are used for the generation of subimages
for classification tests.
A classification test was done for each combina- The number of test images incorrectly assigned
tion of parameters and the procedure repeated five was obtained for each one of these tests and Fig. 7
times as in the first experiment, yielding 5 4 shows the performance as classification error (%
5 5 ¼ 500 different tests each one with 200 sub- error) against Sp and St for each given Np . The
images to be classified. plots in Fig. 7f, g and h are almost identical, the
28 R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31
classification error just slightly increased for the than 5% for 32 pixels on a side, almost negligible
case i, when Np ¼ 3 subimages are used. Hence, the for 48 pixels and 0% error in the case of 64 pixels.
misclassification rate is almost independent of The computing time of algorithms is given here
the number of subimages Np P 5 used for the sig- for a reference. The time for an image binarization
nature generation, giving us more freedom for this and computing the CCR distribution function
parameter selection. Classification errors are due depends on a particular image data. On a Pentium
basically to the size of the test images, being less 4 PC running at 1.4 GHz, it takes about 686.0 ms
R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31 29
Fig. 6. Classification error rate as a function of the number and the size of subimages used for prototype generation. Classification of
images: (a) St ¼ 128 128, (b) St ¼ 64 64, (c) St ¼ 48 48, (d) St ¼ 32 32 and (e) St ¼ 24 24 pixels.
Fig. 7. Classification error rate as a function of the size of subimages used for prototype generation and those for testing. Case (f)
Np ¼ 15, (g)Np ¼ 10, (h) Np ¼ 5 and (i) Np ¼ 3.
to binarize a 128 128 pixels grey-level image compute the CCR distribution function. For a
using the FCM method and about 15.9 ms to 64 64 pixels case, the times are just 160.7 and 4.4
30 R.E. Sanchez-Ya~nez et al. / Pattern Recognition Letters 24 (2003) 21–31
nition and Computer Vision. World Scientific Publishing, Wang, L., He, D.C., 1990. Texture classification using texture
Singapore, pp. 235–276 (Chapter 11). spectrum. Pattern Recogn. 23, 905–910.
Unser, M., 1986. Sum and difference histograms for texture Weszka, J., Dyer, C., Rosenfeld, A., 1976. A comparative study
classification. IEEE Trans. Patt. Anal. Mach. Intell. 8 (1), of texture measures for terrain classification. IEEE Trans.
118–125. Syst. Man Cybern. SMC-6, 269–285.