International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 4 Issue 6- June 2013

Fast Active Contours Evolution for Images with Uniform Background/Foreground

Chetna Ahuja1, Vishal Dora2
Department Of Electronics and Communications Samalkha Group of Institutes, Samalkha, India
Abstract In this paper, we have worked on the curve evolution for images with uniform background. Among model-based techniques, deformable models offer a unique and powerful approach to image analysis that combines geometry, physics, and approximation theory. Chan-Vese used Mumford-Shah functional and solved it using level set method for energy minimisation. In our work we also have used the functional with relaxed length and area term. Additionally we have used the explicit level set. The main aim is to enhance the speed of contour evolution. We have worked on remarkably reducing the execution time of contour evolution. The results can simply be tested on real biomedical images and some synthetic images with uniform background. Finally the results in terms of execution time have been compared. Index Terms- Level-Set, biomedical images, synthetic images, contour evolution.

Etotal = Einternal + Eexternal

(i)

The external forces stretch the model towards the boundaries. By creating the conditions for the extracted boundaries smoothening and other related information about the shape, colour etc. about the image the deformable models provide ruggedness to both noise and non-linearity in the background of the image.

Image Acoquisation

I. INTRODUCTION The need of consideration of this approach is to get the description of the components involved in the image. The contour is nothing more than an edge detection technique that helps in getting the complete detail of the components involved by segmentation. Medical images can be corrupted by noise that can be the difficult to analyse by the classical approach used for segmentation. Therefore post processing is required for eliminating unrequired object boundaries. To acquire this; an intensive research is carried out to get aspiring results. Deformable models are the solution to this problem. These are the curves defined within an image that can be controlled by the influence of internal contour energy as well as the external image energy that tries to break the contour. The internal forces keep the model smooth as well as the external forces are defined to move the model towards an object boundary or other desired features within an image. By constraining extracted boundary gaps and allow integrating boundary elements into a coherent and consistent mathematical description such a boundary description can be readily used by subsequent applications. Active contour models are the curves that are based on energy minimising functional that gets deformed to cover the images. The internal energy of the contour produces the forces like tension and provide rigidity that helps in keeping the model uniform and the sharp edges are prevented. To balance this internal energy arises that helps the contour to attain the required spacing [1]. The total energy of the contour is:

Contour Evolution
Segmented Image
Figure 1: Basic structure of Active Contours Evolution

II. RELATED WORKS In last four decades, computerized image segmentation has played an increasingly important role in medical imaging. Segmented images are now used regularly in a multitude of different applications, such as the quantification of tissue volumes, diagnosis, localization of pathology, study of anatomical structure, treatment planning, partial volume correction of functional imaging data, and computerintegrated surgery. Image segmentation remains a difficult task, however, due to both the tremendous variability of object shapes and the variation in image quality. In particular, medical images are often corrupted by noise and sampling artifacts, which can cause considerable difficulties when applying classical segmentation techniques such as edge detection and thresholding. As a result, these techniques either fail completely or require some kind of post processing step to remove invalid object boundaries in the segmentation results To address these difficulties, deformable models have been extensively studied and widely used in medical image segmentation, with promising results [4]

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 4 Issue 6- June 2013
Deformable models are curves or surfaces defined within an image domain that can move under the influence of internal forces, which are defined within the curve or surface itself, and external forces, which are computed from the image data. The internal forces are designed to keep the model smooth during deformation. The external forces are defined to move the model toward an object boundary or other desired features within an image [2]. A. Types of deformable models There are basically two types of deformable models: parametric deformable models and geometric deformable models. Parametric deformable models represent curves and surfaces explicitly in their parametric forms during deformation. This representation allows direct interaction with the model and can lead to a compact representation for fast real-time implementation. Adaptation of the model topology, however, such as splitting or merging parts during the deformation, can be difficult using parametric models. Geometric deformable models, on the other hand, can handle topological changes naturally. These models, based on the theory of curve evolution and the level set method, represent curves and surfaces implicitly as a level set of a higher-dimensional scalar function. Their parameterizations are computed only after complete deformation, thereby allowing topological adaptively to be easily accommodated. Despite this fundamental difference, the underlying principles of both methods are very similar. Geometrically, a snake is a parametric contour embedded in the image plane (x, y) _2. The contour is represented as v(s) = (x(s), y(s))_, where x and y are the coordinate functions and s [0, 1] is the parametric domain. The shape of the contour subject to an image I(x, y) is dictated by the functional E (v) = S (v) + P (v) The functional can be viewed as a representation of the energy of the contour and the final shape of the contour corresponds to the minimum of this energy. B. Dynamic Deformable Models While it is natural to view energy minimization as a static problem, a potent approach to computing the local minima of a functional is to construct a dynamical system that is governed by the functional and allow the system to evolve to equilibrium. The system may be constructed by applying the principles of Lagrangian mechanics. This leads to dynamic deformable models that unify the description of shape and motion, making it possible to quantify not just static shape, but also shape evolution through time. Dynamic models are valuable for medical image analysis, since most anatomical structures are deformable and continually undergo no rigid motion in vivo. Moreover, dynamic models exhibit intuitively meaningful physical behaviours, making their evolution amenable to interactive guidance from a user. C. Probabilistic Deformable Models An alternative view of deformable models emerges from casting the model fitting process in a probabilistic framework, often taking a Bayesian approach. This permits the incorporation of prior model and sensor model characteristics in terms of probability distributions. The probabilistic framework also provides a measure of the uncertainty of the estimated shape parameters after the model is fitted to the image data . It is easy to convert the internal energy measure of the deformable model into a prior distribution over expected shapes, with lower energy shapes being the more likely. D. Image Segmentation with Deformable Curves The segmentation of anatomic structuresthe partitioning of the original set of image points into subsets corresponding to the structuresis an essential first stage of most medical image analysis tasks, such as registration, labelling, and motion tracking. These tasks require anatomic structures in the original image to be reduced to a compact, analytic representation of their shapes. Performing this segmentation manually is extremely laboured intensive and timeconsuming. Most clinical segmentation is currently performed using manual slice editing. In this scenario, a skilled operator, using a computer mouse or trackball, manually traces the region of interest on each slice of an image volume. Manual slice editing suffers from several drawbacks. These include the difficulty in achieving reproducible results, operator bias, forcing the operator to view each 2D slice separately to deduce and measure the shape and volume of 3D structures, and operator fatigue. Segmentation using traditional low-level image processing techniques, such as thresholding, region growing, edge detection, and mathematical morphology operations, also requires considerable amount of expert interactive guidance. Furthermore, automating these modelfree approaches is difficult because of the shape complexity and variability within and across individuals [8]. E. Snakes: Active Contour Model Active contour models known colloquially as snakes are energy-minimising curves that deform to fit image features. Snakes lock on to local minima in the potential energy generated by processing an image. (This energy is minimised by iterative gradient descent, moving the model according to equations of motion derived using the calculus of variations; a simple Euler time-stepping scheme can be used for this purpose, but a semi-implicit scheme is theoretically more stable.) In addition, internal (smoothing) constraints produce tension and stiffness that keep the model smooth and continuous, and prevent the formation of sharp corners; external constraints may be specified by a supervising process

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 4 Issue 6- June 2013
or a human user. A pressure term can also be added to make the models expand like balloons or bubbles. Active contour models provide a unified solution to several image processing problems such as the detection of light and dark lines and edges; they are often used to segment spatial and temporal image sequences. Unfortunately, the energy minimisation process is prone to oscillation unless a very small time step is used, with the side-effect that convergence is slow. In this paper we are working on parametric deformable models. We have combined the low- level and mid-level image processing. The segmentation of images with uniform background are calculated. The time of execution is reduced without affecting the efficiency of the contour evolution. As per increasing technology, time is the greatest factor and to minimise it is one of the biggest achievement. So by variations in previous work, we are trying to achieve our goal [9]. III. PURPOSED METHODOLOGY The most basic properties of three new variational problems which are suggested by applications to computer vision. In computer vision, a fundamental problem is to appropriately decompose the domain R of a function g(x, y) of two variables. The snake is an energy-minimising parametric contour that deforms over a series of time steps: Esnake =
element

(u(s, t)) ds

external energy drives the active contour towards the desired points or boundaries within the image plane. The internal energy tries to keep the snake connected and consistent, preserving characteristics like steadiness, smoothness, tension and stiffness [3]. The image smoothing is such that we can apply the smoothing and the detection in any order [12]. A new model for active contours to detect objects in a given image, based on techniques of curve evolution, MumfordShah functional for segmentation and level sets. The model can detect objects whose boundaries are not necessarily defined by gradient. The image segmentation aims at extracting meaningful objects lying in images either by dividing images into contiguous semantic regions, or by extracting one or more specific objects in images such as medical structures. The active contour evolution is a classical approach of detecting the edges of the images. If the contour spread like a 2-d curve and then emerge like an area that covers the entire region like a removable boundary. It highlights the region where the uniformity of the structure deforms. The approach has great importance in biomedical images and surveillance. The concept has been used from years but the time in achieving the contours is too much. We proposed an algorithm that works in the same manner but the time for evolution is reduced to remarkable levels. The algorithm on which we have worked is considered from the previous work only. The algorithm works as: 0 STEP 1: Initialise at n=0. STEP 2: Compute C1 and C2 by Chan-Vese functional. n+1 STEP 3: Solve PDE to obtain STEP 4: Evaluate C1 and C2. STEP 5: Stop if converge. STEP 6: Else go to STEP 2 The steps goes as firstly initialise the curve that covers the whole part to be segmented like an eclipse. Then it starts covering the segments in a way that the inner part is known as C1 and the outer part is known as C2. These are the intensities inside and outside the contours. Further we obtain the PDE which comprises of internal energy and external energy terms like , ,. Solve these terms and bring them in equilibrium to obtain n+1 .With the functional we obtain the values of C1 and C2 i.e. the mean intensities of the contours. If the contour stops converging more than the stops the process, the segments are attained. Else keep on working on the process till the final segments are not attained. This algorithm is amendment in the existing algorithm proposed by Chan-Vese. IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS On following the algorithm, the speed of the contour evolution can be increased remarkably. The contour evolution is very applicable in determining the affected areas in terms of biomedical images. Also there effect can be used in

From (i) we can define Einternal as: Einternal (u) = ( ) | | ( )| |

And Eexternal as: | Eexternal (u) = k | The active contours are called snakes are defined in (x, y) plane through the function: [ ] [ ]

The related discrete deformable model, the active contour, is changed, in subsequent iterative steps, by deformations guided and limited in order to minimize the following functional: Esnake = Econ (V(s)) ds (V(s)) ds = ( (V(s)) + Eimage (V(s)) +

This is defined as a sum of energy terms. These energies can be divided into two main groups, internal energies, function of the same V(s) contour at a certain time step, and external, functions that take into account characteristics of the processed images such as edges and luminance peaks. The

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 4 Issue 6- June 2013
surveillance techniques. The images with the uniform background show effective results in this algorithm. Some of the synthetic images have also been worked upon that have shown good results. Images with noisy background are also detectable to some extent.

Figure 3: Synthetic Image

Figure 2: Image showing original image and their segmented images.

The results can be drawn for the real images but the algorithm works for some synthetic images and tries to evolve the contours for some non-uniform, noisy background images. The result for synthetic image is shown in figure.3. The result gives the complete description of the comparison that we have tried to explain through our research. The results deal with the time taken in execution of the code without affecting the efficiency of the contour evolution. This work provides simple and fast contour evolution approach.
Figure 4: Segmented Image

The time taken in deforming the model has been reduced. The result has been taken for both real as well as synthetic images. The images are firstly converted to grey scale and

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International Journal of Engineering Trends and Technology (IJETT) Volume 4 Issue 6- June 2013
then the segmentation is done. The algorithm works for reducing the time taken for contour evolution but the efficiency remains the same, i.e. the area segmented remains the same, the iterations are being reduced with the coding.
TABLE I TIME REDUCTION IN EXECUTION OF ACTIVE CONTOUR MODEL

We can see that the efficiency remains the same as the segmented ratio comes equal in both the algorithms but the time leap is tremendously reduced. Figure.7 plots the comparison between the two algorithms and we can see the difference in execution time of both the algorithms.

Titles/Figure values Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Figure 4 Figure 5

Old Method 8 min 30 sec (510 sec) 12 min (720 sec) 8 min 23 sec (503 sec) 10 min (600 sec) 14 min (840 sec)

New Method 3 sec 11 sec 8 sec 8 sec 9 sec

Segmented Ratio 0.115861 0.017590 0.088375 0.084337 0.104173

Comparison
1000 800 720 600 510 400 200 503 600 840

Old Method
1000 800 600 400 200 0
0.115861 0.01759 0.088375 0.084337 0.104173 Figure 5: Graph showing time taken by old method v/s segmented ratio

3
0.115861

11
0.01759

8
0.088375

8
0.084337

9
0.104173

840

Figure 7: Comparison between time of execution the two methods of contour evolution

720
510 503 600

V. CONCLUSION The deformable model is the efficient tool used for analysis of the segments of an image, as the uniformity is the key factor .if the uniformity of the image is maintained the segments emergence is least. With all the non-uniformities, the contour break in segments and that is the main concept of our research[1]. We have successfully shown the results for fast contour evolution. The graph explicitly explains the difference in time by the base approach In our base paper the idea of using the explicit equation for the contour evolution. In original paper, is set to be zero which is the area term. In our work we have set both (length) and (area) as zero. There is tremendous leap in execution time by using the new functional.
[1]

New Method
12 10 8 6 4 2 0
0.115861 0.01759 0.088375 0.084337 0.104173 Figure 6: Graph showing time taken by new method v/s segmented ratio

11 8 8 9

[2]

[3] [4] [5]

[6]
[7]

Now as individually we have plotted the graph between the segmented ratio and the time taken by both the algorithms as shown in figure.5 and figure.6. corresponding to the Table I.

REFERENCES Vese, L.A., Chan, T.F.: A multiphase level set framework for image segmentation using the Mumford and Shah model. Intl Journal of Computer Vision 50(3) (2002) 2712 D. Mumford and J. Shah, Optimal approximation by piecewise smooth functions and associated variational problems, Commun. Pure Appl.Math, vol. 42, pp. 577685, 1989. M. Kass, A. Witkin, and D. Terzopoulos, Snakes: Active contour models, Int. J. Comput. Vis., vol. 1, pp. 321331, 1988. Caselles, V., Kimmel, R., Sapiro, G.: Geodesic active contours. In: IEEE Intl Conf. on Computer Vision. (1995) 694699. Gonzalez, C. R. ve Woods, E. R.: Digital image processing, USA: Addison Wesley Publishing, p. 976, 1993. S. Osher and J. A. Sethian, Fronts propagating with curvature dependent speed: algorithms based on Hamilton-Jacobi formulations, J. Computational Physics, vol. 79,pp. 1249, 1988. J.A. Sethian. Level Sets Methods and Fast Marching Methods: Evolving Interfaces in Computational Geometry, Fluid Mechanics,

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Computer Vision, and Material Science. Cambridge University Press, 1999. T. Cohignac, C. Lopez, and J.M. Morel. Integral and local affine invariant parameters and application to shape recognition. In D. Dori and A. Bruckstein, editors, Shape Structureand Pattern Recognition. World Scientific Publishing, 1995. Invins et.al.Snakes-Active Contour Model C. Xu, J.L. Prince, Snakes, shapes, and gradient vector flow, IEEE Trans. Image Process. 7 (3) (1998). G. Sapiro, Geometric Partial Differential Equations and Image Analysis, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2001. N. Paragios, R. Deriche, Geodesic active contours and level sets for the detection and tracking of moving objects, IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Machine Intell. 22 (3) (2000) 266 280. D.Jayadevappa, S.Srinivas Kumar, and D.S.Murty, A New Deformable Model Based on Level Sets for Medical Image Segmentation, IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, 36:3, IJCS_36_3_01.

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[13]

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