An Image Segmentation Algorithm with Applications to Image Inpainting

• Activity Number: 636
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 5, 2010 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Computing
• Author(s): Ronny O. Vallejos*+ and Silvia M. Ojeda and Oscar H. Bustos
• Companies: Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria and Universidad Nacional de Cordoba and Universidad Nacional de Cordoba
• Keywords: Image segmentation ; Border detection ; Spatial AR Models ; Robust Estimators ; Image inpainting

Abstract

We describe a new approach to perform image segmentation. First an image is locally modeled using a spatial autoregressive model for the image intensity. Then the generated image is subtracted from the original image. The resulting image possesses interesting texture features. The borders and edges are highlighted suggesting that our algorithm can be used for border detection. Experimental results with real images are provided to verify how the algorithm works in practice. A robust version of our algorithm is also discussed, to be used when the original image is contaminated with additive outliers. A novel application in the context of image inpainting is also offered.