Non Parametric Statistical Method for Image Segmentation Using

Information Theory and Curve Evolution

1. Introduction:
Image segmentation is one of the core problems in computer vision and related field. There has been
many approaches has been used to address the problem in the past which form the basis for recent
developments.

Some of earlier attempt has been Canny edge detection[1], region growing[2], Mumford shah
functional[3] based global optimization, graph theoretic approach[4]. Curve evolution based
segmentation approach has been of great interest in recent times. In active snake[5] a curve in
initialized close to the edge in the image which then seeks the boundary based on minimization of
energy term which is composed of image term(gradient) and regularization term (snake smoothness).
Cohen L.[6] improved the initialization requirement close to the curve by means of balloon force to the
existing approach. In Level set[7][8][9] based approach segmentation is achieved by means of
propagating volume of fluid guided by potential field which is a function of image gradient, while
segmentation is achieved by means of zero level set. The advantage of the level set based approach is
that is can segment multiple object instances without any initialization requirement.

Recently many variants[10][11] of the level set based technique has been developed. In this project
nonparametric statistical method for image segmentation based on mutual information and curve
evolution[12] has been implemented. The major advantage of mutual information based approach is
that is does not depend on the intensity of the pixel rather is it based on the distribution of the pixel
intensities. In this project, curve evolution based on maximization of mutual information by Kim J. et
al[11] has been followed in entirety.

Firstly, the approach used is explained. Then implementation details of the approach have been
described followed by remarks on implementation, conclusion and future development.

Approach:
Let us assume p1 and p2 are the pixel brightness densities of regions inside (R1) and outside (R2) the
object of interest (Fig-1)

G(x| xϵR1) = p1

And, G(x|xϵR2) = p2

Let us call the region inside and outside the evolving curve R+ and R- and provide labels L+ and L- for
pixel inside the closed curve and the same outside the segmenting closed curve.

LC(x) = L+ , for pixel inside the closed curve C

L- , for pixel outside the closed curve C

Figure 1: Actual segmentation (Left) and Segmentation by evolving curve (Right)[12]

The brightness value at any pixel ‘x’ is given by probability distribution G(x) assuming i.i.d assumption
holds for pixel intensity distribution over the image. Now the mutual information between pixel label
and brightness can be expressed as-

I(G(X);LC(X)) = h(G(X)) - h(G(X)| LC(X))

= h(G(X))-Pr(LC(X)=L+)h(G(X)| LC(X)=L+)- Pr(LC(X)=L+)h(G(X)| LC(X)=L-)

Where h(Z) is the differential entropy.

Now,

| R + I R1 | | R + I R2 |
PG (Y )|Lc (Y ) = L + = p1(Y ) + p 2(Y )
| R+ | | R+ |
| R − I R1 | | R − I R2 |
PG (Y )|Lc (Y ) = L − = p1(Y ) + p 2(Y )
| R− | | R− |

As we can easily observe each of the above probabilities will be maximum for (R+ = R1 and R- = R2) or
(R+ = R2 and R- = R1) meaning that in correct segmentation both of inside and outside regions of closed
curve C will be uniform, hence the entropies will be will be minimum for correct segmentation case.
Consequently the mutual information between the label and the pixel brightness will be maximum.

Hence the energy functional to minimize can be expressed as-

E(C) = - | Ω | I(G(X); LC(X)) + α ∫ ds

C

Following the result in equation(15)by Kim J. et al[12]

The gradient flow can be expressed as

∂C  p (G (C )) 1 K (G ( x) − G (C )) 1 K (G ( x) − G (C ))  r r
= log + + ∫ dx + ∫ dx  N − ακN
∂t  p − (G (C )) | R + | R + p + (G ( x)) | R− | R− p − (G ( x)) 

Where, K is the Gaussian kernel for nonparametric probability density estimation.

Conversion to discrete form in level set:

Let us assume-

 p + (G (C )) 1 K (G ( x) − G (C )) 1 K (G ( x) − G (C )) 
dx  − ακ
p − (G (C )) | R + | R∫+ | R − | R∫−
(equation-1) H = log + dx +
 p + (G ( x)) p − (G ( x)) 

then

∂C r
= HN
∂t

Let U(x,t) be the level set. Then the segmenting curve can be expressed as U(x,t)=0

Taking derivative with respect to time

U t + ∇U • x t = 0

Now,

∂C
xt =
∂t
r ∇U
Hence using N = ,
| ∇U |

r  ∇U 
U t + ∇U • ( HN ) = 0 becomes U t +  ∇U • H = 0
 | ∇U | 

Which gives the level set evolution equation in discrete form-

(equation-2) U t + H | ∇U |= 0 ⇒ U ( x) n +1 = U ( x) n − H n | Ux n |

Evaluation of H

Discretizing each term of equation (1)-

 K (G ( x) − G (C )) K ( I (x) − I (y ))
(equation-3) ∫ dx = ∑ (Say T1)
p + (G ( x )) 1
R+ x∈R +
∑
| R + | w∈R +
K ( I ( w ) − I ( x ))

K (G ( x) − G (C )) K ( I (x) − I (y ))
(equation-4) ∫ dx = ∑ (Say T2)
p − (G ( x )) 1
R− x∈R −
∑ K ( I (w ) − I (x))
| R − | w∈R −

1
p + (G (C ))
∑ K ( I (w) − I (x))
| R + | w∈R +
(equation-5) log = log (Say T3)
p − (G (C )) 1
∑ K ( I (w) − I (x))
| R − | w∈R −

Uxx(Uy) 2 +Uyy(Ux) 2 − 2UxUyUxy

(equation-6) κ = − 3
(Say T4)
(Ux + Uy )
2 2 2

Where x,y,w,z are locations in level set. And R+ = {x:U(x)<=0}, R+ = {x:U(x)>0}.

Substituting these results in equation(1) we obtain the discrete form of H as

1 1
(equation-7) H = T 3 + T1 − T 1 − αT 4
| R+ | | R− |

Equation (2) and (7) provides us the discrete evolution equation of the level set.

For evaluation of differentials of the terms in level set evolution equation, higher order approximation
was obtained by knocking out terms in Taylor series expansion of f(x-2h), f(x-h), f(x+h) and f(x+2h) as-

df ( x )
= f ( x − 2h) − f ( x + 2h) + 8( f ( x + 1) − f ( x − 1)) + e( h 4 )
dx

Furthermore, to impose the entropy condition[13] a constant term is added to H to avoid swallowtail
problem.

However due to huge complexity of kernel density estimation, it take very long time to perform one
iteration hence, I was not been able to optimize the parameters to get the output to demonstrate
during project demo.

Remarks:
In the implementation of level set due to prohibitive running time parameters could not be optimized
suitably to obtain results.
Test image has been successfully generated to test the approach on image having different
combinations of probability distributions. Furthermore, different initialization scheme for level set has
been implemented.

Conclusions:
Mutual information based approach to image segmentation immune to variation in the pixels intensity
values. It however proved to be very computations intensive in the form of level set implementation,
which restricts its applications.

Level set based on volume of fluid approach is able to handle merging and splitting or evolving curve
automatically and proves very useful for image segmentation.

Future work:
Firstly the parameters’ optimum values need to be determined to demonstrate the approach. Secondly,
to improve the speed of the calculation of mutual information based term in evolution process, Fast
Gauss Transform and Narrow band Level set will be implemented. And lastly, the implementation will be
extended to multiphase segmentation.
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