Digital Image Processing

Image Segmentation:
Thresholding

Course Website: http://www.comp.dit.ie/bmacnamee

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Contents
So far we have been considering image
processing techniques used to transform
images for human interpretation
Today we will begin looking at automated
image analysis by examining the thorny issue
of image segmentation:
– The segmentation problem
– Finding points, lines and edges
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The Segmentation Problem
Segmentation attempts to partition the pixels
of an image into groups that strongly
correlate with the objects in an image
Typically the first step in any automated
computer vision application
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)
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Segmentation Examples
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Detection Of Discontinuities
There are three basic types of grey level
discontinuities that we tend to look for in
digital images:
– Points
– Lines
– Edges
We typically find discontinuities using masks
and correlation
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Point Detection
Point detection can be achieved simply
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

using the mask below:

Points are detected at those pixels in the

subsequent filtered image that are above a
set threshold
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Point Detection (cont…)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

X-ray image of Result of point Result of

a turbine blade detection thresholding
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Line Detection
The next level of complexity is to try to
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

detect lines
The masks below will extract lines that are
one pixel thick and running in a particular
direction
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Line Detection (cont…)
Binary image of a wire
bond mask
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

After
Result of
processing
thresholding
with -45° line
filtering result
detector
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Edge Detection
An edge is a set of connected pixels that lie
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

on the boundary between two regions

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Edges & Derivatives
We have already spoken
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

about how derivatives

are used to find
discontinuities
1st derivative tells us
where an edge is
2nd derivative can
be used to show
edge direction
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Derivatives & Noise
Derivative based edge detectors are
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

extremely sensitive to noise

We need to keep this in mind
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Recall 1st Derivative Filtering
There is some debate as to how best to
calculate these gradients but we will use:
f  z7  2 z8  z9   z1  2 z 2  z3 
 z3  2 z6  z9   z1  2 z 4  z7 
which is based on these coordinates
z1 z2 z3

z4 z5 z6

z7 z8 z9
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Common Edge Detectors
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Common Edge Detectors
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Common Edge Detectors
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Common Edge Detectors
Given a 3*3 region of an image the following
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

edge detection filters can be used

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Edge Detection Example
Original Image Horizontal Gradient Component
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Vertical Gradient Component Combined Edge Image

Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Edge Detection Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Edge Detection Example
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Edge Detection Example
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Edge Detection Example
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Edge Detection Problems
Often, problems arise in edge detection in
that there are is too much detail
For example, the brickwork in the previous
example
One way to overcome this is to smooth
images prior to edge detection
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Edge Detection Example With
20 Smoothing
Original Image Horizontal Gradient Component
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

Vertical Gradient Component Combined Edge Image

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Laplacian Edge Detection
We encountered the 2nd-order derivative
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

based Laplacian filter already

The Laplacian is typically not used by itself

as it is too sensitive to noise
Usually then used for edge detection the
Laplacian is combined with a smoothing
Gaussian filter
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Laplacian Of Gaussian
The Laplacian of Gaussian (or Mexican hat)
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

filter uses the Gaussian for noise removal

and the Laplacian for edge detection
Images taken from Gonzalez & Woods, Digital Image Processing (2002)

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Laplacian Of Gaussian Example
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Summary
In this lecture we have begun looking at
segmentation, and in particular edge detection
Edge detection is massively important as it is
in many cases the first step to object
recognition