Presented by ~

INDRANATH CHATTERJEE

indranath.cs.du@gmail.com

Department of Computer Science

University of Delhi
January 18, 2015

University of Delhi

What is Image Segmentation?

Extraction of the important objects from an input

image.
Partitions an image into distinct regions containing
each pixels with similar attributes.
Partitions a digital image into multiple segments and
classify them into distinct classes.

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Why to use Image Segmentation?

The goal of image segmentation is to cluster pixels into

salient image regions.

It is used mainly for:

Computer Vision
Medical Imaging
Object Recognition task
Content based Image Retrieval
and many more
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Type of Image Segmentation

Edge Based
Color Based
Texture Based
Disparity Based
Motion Based

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Image Segmentation in Remote Sensing

It becomes more important in the field of remote sensing

for Geo-Spatial satellite images.

Mainly two types of images are taken by remote sensing
purposes for segmentation:
SPOT (Satellite Pour l'Observation de la Terre)- Taken

by SPOT satellite with HRV and HRVIR sensor

detectors.
SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar)- Taken with the help of
radar signals.

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Example of SAR and SPOT Image

Fig 1. SAR Image

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Fig 2. Multi-spectral SPOT Image

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SAR Image
Obtained from ERS, JERS and RADARSAT satellites.
It can works in any climatic condition, day and night.
Creates 2D/3D representation of terrain objects with the

help of radar signal and its echo.

Mounted on a moving platform such as an aircraft or

spacecraft.
Formed by coherent interaction of the transmitted

microwave with the targets. Hence, it suffers from the

effects of speckle noise.
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Speckle Noise
Arises from coherent summation of the signals

scattered from ground scatterers distributed randomly

within each pixel.
Granular 'noise' that inherently exists in and degrades
the quality of the SAR images.
In SAR, it is a multiplicative noise, i.e. it is in direct
proportion to the local grey level in any area.

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Research Problem
SAR Image Segmentation and
classification to find out different
regions within the image and analyze
them.

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Research Objective
To make images noiseless.
Detail Preserving Segments.
Fast Computation Time of segmentation.

Thus it needs Multi-Objective Optimization

techniques to solve the issues.

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Previous Work
Different single objective techniques of SAR image

segmentation have been proposed, for example, clustering

algorithm, threshold methods, graph-based approaches,
etc.
In almost all the works, images were either properly
segmented removing less speckle noise or removed noise
but failed to segment the image efficiently. The optimal
value of the threshold for each criterion does not produce a
satisfactory image segmentation.
To obtain both criteria of noise removal and proper image
segmentation, Multi-Objective optimization approach
has been taken.
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Multi-Objective Optimization
An area of multiple criteria decision making, that is

concerned with mathematical optimization problems

involving more than one objective function to be optimized
simultaneously.
The goal may be to find a representative set of Nondominated Pareto optimal solutions.
In mathematical terms, a multi-objective optimization
problem can be formulated as:

where k>=2.

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Multi-Objective Approaches
Recently, various approaches are taking part for

segmenting SAR image with multi-objective optimization

techniques.
Several authors have made their contribution towards the
optimization of the problem.
Several multi-objective approaches like using ant colony
optimization, artificial bee colony algorithm, particle
swarm algorithm, evolutionary algorithm, genetic
algorithm, artificial immune algorithm with fused
complimentary features, quantum inspired evolutionary
algorithm, etc.

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 Surveyed several recent research work for multi-

objective optimization algorithms.

Here , we will study on some of the different research

work on the same problem.

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1. Fast SAR Image segmentation

Algorithm based on PSO and Grey
Entropy.
th
(Ma, Zhang, Tian, Lu- 4 ICNC08)

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1.1 Introduction
PSOGE algorithm used here, which is based on

particle swarm optimization and grey entropy for

speed up.
Technique of pbest and gbest to find the threshold
value efficiently.
Grey-level co-occurrence matrix is constructed from
SAR Image. On the basis of the matrix, a grey entropy
based fitness function is designed for PSO.
Objective is to minimize speckle noise and efficient
segmentation .

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Particle Swarm Optimization

Eberhart and Kennedy proposed the PSO method in 1995.
It is a computational method that optimizes a problem by

iteratively trying to improve a candidate solution.

Moving random particles around in the search-space

altering it's position and velocity.

Movement is influenced by its local best known position
but also guided toward the best known positions in the
search-space, updated as better positions are found by
other particles. This moves the swarm toward the best
solutions.

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1.2 Methodology
Filtered and Gradient image are extracted from SAR image

to analyze via grey-level information.

Grey-level co-occurrence matrix is formed. It correctly
reflect the grey-level distribution among both homogenous
and texture region.
New co-occurrence matrix is formed from F (blurred
filtered image) and G (sharp gradient image) of I (original
image).

By circular averaging filter.

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 Probability co-occurrence matrix c_matrix pi,j :

Two thresholds in images F and G are s and t , which are

grey numbers ranging from 0 to L, then the position of (s,

t) will divide the grey-level co-occurrence matrix:

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 Finally, a grey entropy is utilized to act as the object

function in locating the best segmentation threshold by

building the fitness function for the PSO.
f = -GE(s,t)

GE=Grey-entropy

To locate (s, t) is a time-consuming work, so here we would

like to introduce the PSO to quicken the searching speed

by altering Particles movement and velocity by:

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1.3 PSOGE Algorithm flowchart

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1.4 Experiment & Results

Experiment made with real 256X256 SAR image and

applied PSOGE over it.

Image given below was taken with lot of speckle noise.
Fig 2 is the segmented image from SAR image in Fig 1.
It took processing time of 14.0825 seconds with (s, t)=(74,
24),

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1.5 Conclusion
To improve the segmentation quality in both speed and

effect, this paper suggests a PSOGE algorithm which is

quite good.
Information of homogeneous regions, and original details
are there in co-occurrence matrix Hence, the PSOGE is free
from the influence of speckle.
PSOGE may avoid premature stop by adjusting some
parameters in PSO such as large values of the number of
particles or evolution generations, or the maximum flying
speed.

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2. SAR Image Ship Detection Based

on Ant Colony Optimization.
(Li, Wang 5th Int. CISP12)

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2.1 Introduction
Edge detection is an important method of extracting image

edge for image segmentation. Here ship detection is

performed from the SAR images.
Ship detection is performed by Ant Colony
Optimization(ACO) technique which adjusts threshold on
edge detection dynamically.
Here ACO is applied in contrast with traditional edge
detection algorithms and WT method.
ACO is much more efficient in reduced computing time
and complete edge detection with speckle noise in SAR
image than other methods.

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2.2 Ant Colony Optimization

M.Dorigo etc have made a introduction to a general

optimization technology--Ant Colony Optimization.

It is a probabilistic technique for solving computational
problems to find good paths through graphs.
Ants leave pheromones after their route in athletic process.
By perceiving the existence and strength of the pheromone,
ants move in the direction of the higher strength.
The more the ants choose the path, the greater probability
the other ants choose. Through communication of the
information the ant individual chooses the optimal path,
and finally searches the target.

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2.3 Methodology
In this paper the pheromone matrix is updated twice, and

the computing time and cost are greatly reduced through

dynamic adjustment of the threshold optimization
algorithm.

Step 1: Initialization Process:

Firstly K ants are randomly assigned on an M1 M2

image. The initial value of each pheromone matrix
component (0) is set to be constant (init) .

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 Step 2: Construction Process

During construction process, one ant is randomly

selected from K ants, and move on the image for L
movement steps from the node (l,m) to its
neighbouring node (i, j) according to the transition
probability function:

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 Step 3: Update Process

This process performs two operations to update the

pheromone matrix.

.
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Step 4: Decision Process

Compare the final pheromone matrix (N) to
the threshold T .By comparing each pixel with the
threshold to determine whether it is the edge or not

Divide the pheromone matrix (N) into two categories

according to T(l): ML and MU

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 Take iterative index l = l+1 , update iteration threshold as:

If T (l ) T (n1) > , turn to the second step; otherwise,

stop the iteration, and decide whether the (i, j) pixel is the
image edge by using binary decision function. The
judgment criterion is as follows:

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2.4 ACO Flowchart

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2.5 Experiment
Authors used SAR images having 5 ships with inherent

speckle noise. After applying traditional edge detection

algorithm, wavelet transform method and Ant Colony
Optimization.

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2.6 Result

a)Original image

(d) The first iterative result of ACO

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(b) Sobel detection result

(e) The second iterative result of ACO

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(c)Prewitt detection result

(f)WT detection result

(g) ACO detection result

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2.7 Conclusion
Ant Colony Optimization algorithm is adopted to adjust

the threshold dynamically.

Comparing with traditional edge detection operators and
classical WT, ACO shows great superiority in dealing with
image edge detection.
It needs multiple iteration to remove all speckle noise
which sometimes may lead to loss in detail preserving
feature.
ACO also behave some defects, such as: large searching
time, more time wasted for the structure of the solution.

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3. A Multi-objective Optimization
Method Based on MOEA/D and
Fuzzy Clustering for Change
Detection in SAR Images.
(Wang, Li, Gong, Su, Jiao-IEEE
CEC14)
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3.1 Introduction

In this paper, change detection in SAR images integrates

evolutionary computation into fuzzy clustering process, for

detail preserving and noise removal as two separate
objectives for MOO.
Change detection is based on the comparative analysis of
two images acquired from the same area at different times,
with the purpose of detecting the change region between
them.
It has been widely used in various fields, such as medical
diagnosis, remote sensing, and video surveillance
This methods can be divided into two types:
i) Image threshold methods and
ii) Image classification methods.
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3.2 Methodology
A. Generation of Difference Images:

I1 & I2 are two image taken at t1 & t2

time of same geographical region.

Then average filter is applied to remove noise:

Where Xi and Xi are the gray values of the ith pixel
of image In and Il , respectively, N represents a set
of neighbours falling into a window of fixed size, S
stands for the total number of set Nr

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 B. Two Objective Functions Selected for Multi-objective

Optimization.
First FCM clustering is done to preserve details, so first

function is:

uki is the fuzzy membership

degree of the ith pixel with respect
to cluster k. vk is value of cluster k.

For noise removing, the same cluster analysis is exerted on

the filtered image In with most of the image noise removed,

so function is:

The two objective functions can be combined into a multi-

objective optimization problem.

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3.3 Experiment
Authors select the Bern, Ottawa and Yellow River Estuary

datasets as our change detection images.

Bern dataset before processing:

(a)

(b)

(c)

Fig. Images for Bern dataset : (a) Image acquired before flooding in April
1999. (b) Image acquired after flooding in May 1999. (c) Image of the ground
truth.
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3.4 Results

(a)

(b)

(d)

(e)

(c)

(f)

Fig. Six different change detect ion maps selected randomly from all the
results of the Bern dataset.
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Results

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5.5 Conclusion
It converts the change detection problem into a multi-

objective optimization problem (MOP) by considering the

image detail preserving and noise removing as two separate
objectives.
A set of Pareto optimal solutions corresponding to all the
decomposed sub-problems.
Noise Reduction is less compared to other MO algorithms.
It can be improved by updating the membership degree
matrix to increase the effect.

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Other MOO approaches:

SAR image segmentation based on quantum-inspired

multi-objective evolutionary clustering algorithm (Li, Feng,

Zhang, Jiao- IPL14) :

QMEC is proposed to deal with the problem of

image segmentation, where two objectives are simultaneously
optimized. Based on the principles of quantum computing, the
multi-state quantum bits are used to represent individuals and
quantum rotation gate strategy is used to update the probabilistic
individuals.

Due to a set of non-dominated solutions in multiobjective clustering problems, a simple heuristic method is
adopted to select a preferred solution from the final Pareto front
and the results show that a good image segmentation result is
selected.

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Review
Studying all the research works, we can say that MOO

algorithm can be applied to decrease the speckle noise to

enhance the segmentation quality. PSOGE is better only in
sense of noise removal and MOEA & FCM is better in
segment out the difference and ACO also did a good
segmentation and helps in finding the edge of the object
but it is time consuming.
From above all the merits and demerits, we can say that we
have to minimize the computing time as well as do the
noise reduction.

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Conclusion
From the survey we have come to an conclusion that Multi-

objective optimization techniques are very useful in

segmentation of SAR image rather than clustering
algorithm.
We will apply the parallel computing approach in the MOO
techniques in the very near future and will study the
difference.

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Bibliography
1)

Hartigan, John A., and Manchek A. Wong. "Algorithm AS 136: A k-means

clustering algorithm." Applied statistics (1979): 100-108.

2)

Li, Lin-lin, and Ji-kui Wang. "SAR image ship detection based on Ant Colony
Optimization." Image and Signal Processing (CISP), 2012 5th International
Congress on. IEEE, 2012.

3)

Ma, Miao, et al. "A fast SAR image segmentation algorithm based on particle
swarm optimization and grey entropy." Natural Computation, 2008. ICNC'08.
Fourth International Conference on. Vol. 4. IEEE, 2008.

4)

Wang, Qiao, et al. "A multiobjective optimization method based on

MOEA/D and fuzzy clustering for change detection in SAR images."
Evolutionary Computation (CEC), 2014 IEEE Congress on. IEEE, 2014.

5)

Ma, Miao, et al. "SAR image segmentation based on Artificial Bee Colony
algorithm." Applied Soft Computing 11.8 (2011): 5205-5214.

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6) Li, Yangyang, et al. "SAR image segmentation based on quantum-inspired

multiobjective evolutionary clustering algorithm." Information Processing
Letters 114.6 (2014): 287-293.

7) Maulik, Ujjwal, and Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay. "Genetic algorithm-based

clustering technique." Pattern recognition 33.9 (2000): 1455-1465.
8) Ma, Miao, et al. "SAR image segmentation based on Artificial Bee Colony

algorithm." Applied Soft Computing 11.8 (2011): 5205-5214.

9) Handl, Julia, and Joshua Knowles. "An evolutionary approach to
multiobjective clustering." Evolutionary Computation, IEEE Transactions on
11.1 (2007): 56-76.

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Thank you

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