Fast Fuzzy Edge Detection

Hamid R. Ezhoosh

Pattern Recognition and Machine Intelligence Lab Systems Design Engineering, University of Waterloo Waterloo, Ontario,N2L 3G1, Canada Email: tizhoosh@uwaterloo.ca
ABSTRACT In literature, there already exit some fuzzy approaches to edge detection. However, they are generally expensive in computing. In this work, several fast fuzzy edge detectors are introduced for practical cases where a rough edge map is needed in a short time. where fimn indicates the degree o edginess for each pixel. f The task of edge detection is, therefore, the determination of the membership function fimn for each pixel. Following, three different ways for fast calculation of edginess will be proposed. 111. HEURISTIC MEMBERSHIP FUNCTIONS The simplest way for defining a l i m y edge detector is the determination of a proper membership function fimn for each pixel gmn at the position (m, with a surrounding n) w x w spatial window. The definition is heuristic, and in this sense, not unique. Based on general properties of an edgy neighborhood and based on heuristics different membership functions can be introduced. An example for such membership function is the following formula based on gray level differences in each neighborhood [5], [6]:

I. INTRODUCTION Edge detection is one of fundamental tasks in image processing. Many classical edge detectors are already available. In recent years, fuzzy techniques have also been used to introduce new approaches to edge extraction [ 13, [2], [4]. The proposed techniques are flexible and robust but generally very expensive in computing. Also the implementation of these techniques requires more time and effort compared with classical methods. The purpose of this paper is to introduce simple and fast fuzzy edge detectors. Heuristic membership functions, simple fuzzy rules, and fuzzy complements are used to develop new edge detectors.
1 . IMAGES AS FUZZY SETS 1

fimn

= 1-

Let an M x N image X be the set of all pixels gmn E 1 ,L], X can be regarded as an array of fuzzy single0 then tons pmnE [0,1] indicating the degree ofbrightness of each I gray level gmn 131, P :
M N

Igij - gmnl Ci Cj Igii - gmnl A + C Cy Igij - gmnl y

1-

fr

(4)

(5)

The membership function pmn can be achieved, among other possibilities. by a simple normalization:

where A E [0,L)is a proper parameter. Meaningful values are in [ L / 2 ,t]. lower A, the more edges are detected The (Fig. 1). The advantage of defining the degree of edginess as a fuzzy membership function is that in this case the entire fuzzy set theory becomes applicable for further modifications. The linguistic hedges, for instance, or fuzzy inference scheme can be then applied to integrate expert knowledge and improve the result.

IV. FROM MEMBERSHIP FUNCTIONS TO RULES

The image Xcontaining all edges is:
M
N A

(3)
This work was partly supported by NSERC (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada).

To create a better and more robust edge detector, we have to design the membership functions more carefully. If we regard a typical edgy neighborhood, we recognize for instance that the difference between maximum and minimum gray levels, dependent on edge strength, is relatively high. However, this can also be the case in noisy environments. To exclude these cases, we can additionally state that the

0-7803-7461~/02/$17.00 2002 IEEE 0

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or

Examples are illustrated in Fig. 3

(a) Original image

(a) MIN operator (Eq. 8 )

(b) PROD operator (Eq. 9)

Fig. 2. Rule-based edge detection (A1 = 128, A, = 32) figure

(b) A = 128
(c)

A = 255

V FUZZY COMPLEMENTS .
Fig. 1. Edge detection using equation ( 5 ) in 3 x 3 windows figure

Let X be the complement of image X': '

gray-level intensity of center pixel in an optimal edgy neighborhood is more or less exactly between the minimum and maximum gray-levels. The linguistic formulation of this knowledge is: If the difference between gmin and gmaz high, is and the center pixel is equal meadmedian, then the edginess is high. Is W an w x w neighborhood surrounding the center pixel gmn,then the membership functions can be defined as follows:

The degree of fuzziness 7 of an edgy image X' can be calculated as follows:

where T is any t-norm. Since we are regarding partial membership values, the intersection of an edgy image with its

complementary set non-edgv image is not an empty set:

(12) Assuming an optimal transition, the intersection of image and its complement should deliver high values for edgy regions. Example: Let consider an optimal edge in a 3 x 3 neighborhood W:

X' nx' # (2).

W=
MeanMed is either mean or median value. A1 > L / 4 and A2 < L / 4 are meaningful boundaries for the parameters. Using simple t-norms the edge map is then .

0
5"O

50

5"O

100 100 100

1.

The spatial membership values can be calculate by dividing all pixel by maximum intensity:
p=

0 Of

0 Of

Of].

240

The fuzzy complement is:

1-p=

where pij is calculated as follows:

1 1 ; ,005]0

[4

The intersection is:

p n (1 - p ) =

Results are presented in Fig. 3.

[I : I ]
0.5 0.5 0.5

Interpretation: In optimal cases, the intersection of an edgy image with its complement delivers high values (E (0,0.5]) for edgy pixels and very low values (40) for other pixels. Since edges separate two different regions, they also belong to both of them; the membership value of 0.5 indicates exactly this fact. Since we have an optimal edge the fuzziness of complement membership matrix is only high for the row/column containing the gray level transition. An edginess measure can be defined in a w x w neighborhood figure where T is t-norm such as minimum operator

(a) edges using Eq. 16

(b) edges using Eq. 17

Fig. 3. Complement-based edge detection

V-A. Extension to Sugeno Complements Let p,,,,, be the membership values of image X. The Sugeno (involutive) complements pmnare given as follows:

or product operator

with X E (- 1,00) and the property

Pmn = Pmn (Pmnbmn)) = pmn(20) An edginess measure can be redefined in a w x w neighborhood:

Since the spatial calculation of membership values is noise sensitive we can extend the function and make it robust. We have two possibilities: either we correct the membership values after the fuzzy complements are built: min ( p i j , 1 - p i j ) Results for different X values are illustrated in Fig. 4. VI. COMPUTATION TIME Several tests have been accomplished in MatLab environment to compare the computation times of proposed techniques heuristic membership functions (HMF), simple rule-based approach (SRJ3) and fuzzy complement-based method (FC) with Sobel operator. Results are presented in Table 1. The codes were not optimized so that the developed techniques can be still accelerated.

or by using the product operator:

where p i j is a simple normalization according to equation (2), or we correct the membership values before filzzy complements are built:

24 1

Table I. Computation times compared to Sobel

table

Sobel
1

11 HMF I 11 1.08

SRB 1.82

I FC I 1.20

(a) X = -0.9

(b) X = 0

VIII. REFERENCES Bezdek, J.C., Chandrasekhar, R., and Attikiouzel, Y (1998): A geometric approach to edge detection. . IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy Systems, 6 (l), pp. 5275 H0,K.H.L. (1995): E D G E - fuzzy edge detection by fuzzy categorization and classification of edges. IJCAI95 Workshop, Montral, Canada, pp. 182-196. .. Pal, S K ,Dutta Majumder, D.K. (1985): Fuzzy Mathematical approach to pattern recognition. John Wiley and Sons Russo,F. (1999): FIRE operators for image processing, Fuzzy Sets and Systems, 103 (2), pp. 265-275 Tizhoosh, H.R. (1997): Fuzzy Image Processing (in German), Springer, Heidelberg Tizhoosh, H.R., HauBecker, H. (1999): Fuzzy Image Processing: An Overview. In: Jiihne, B., Hadecker, H., GeiBler, P. (Eds.), Handbook on Computer Ksion and Applications, Academic Press, vol. 2, pp. 683727

(c) X = 5

Fig. 4. Edges using Sugeno complements

figure

VII. CONCLUSIONS Three fuzzy approachesto edge detection are proposed in this paper: Heuristic membership functions, simple fuuy rules, and complement-based edge extraction. These methods are simple in implementation and fast in computing. They are suitable for practical cases where a rough edge estimation is necessary in a short time. A comparison to existing f u z q and classical approaches with respect to detection performance will be subject to future works.

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