2010 Third International Conference on Intelligent Networks and Intelligent Systems

Threshold-Based Level Set Method of Image Segmentation

Anping XU, Lijuan WANG, Sha FENG, and Yunxia QU
School of Mechanical Engineering Hebei University of Technology Tianjin 300130, China e-mail: xap@hebut.edu.cn
AbstractA novel medical image segmentation approach, termed as threshold-based level set approach, is presented, which combines the threshold segmentation method with the fast marching method. In this approach, the original image is firstly preprocessed by anisotropic filter in order to enhance the image edge and filter noise, and then the threshold segmentation method is used to control the diffusion coefficient of curve within the threshold set, and finally the image is segmented by using improved fast marching method (FMM). The speed function of FMM is defined based on the statistical similarity degree of the regions. The experimental results show that this approach can improve the segmentation effect and raise the segmentation speed. Keywords- Medical image segmentation; threshold segmentation; level set; fast marching method

shortcomings of traditional active contour model, Zou [2] introduced an edge detection algorithm integrating an edge segmentation and active contour model. Due to the problem with the selection of traditional active contour models initial outline, Li [3] dealt with the characteristics of brain tumor MRI image, and used an improved region growing method to get the tumor region of MRI image and then the border was used as the active contour models initial edge contour. A method of medical image segmentation combined fast marching method with watershed transform was presented by Zhu and Tian [4]. In this paper, a novel medical image segmentation approach, termed as threshold-based level set approach, is presented, which combines the threshold segmentation method with the fast marching method. First, the original image is preprocessed by anisotropic filter in order to enhance the image edge and filter noise. Then the threshold segmentation method is used to control the diffusion coefficient of curve within the threshold set by user. Finally, the image is segmented by using an improved fast marching method. The speed function of fast marching method is defined based on the statistical similarity degree of the regions. II. LEVEL SET METHOD

I.

INTRODUCTION

Medical image segmentation has great significance to the study of anatomy, focus identification, disease diagnosis, 3D reconstruction of normal and lesions tissue. It is the key and important basis to the follow-up operation. However, as a result of the complexity of human anatomy, irregularity of tissue and difference between individuals, the medical image segmentation becomes one of the basic classical problems in the field of medical image processing and analysis. It is also a hot topic for the domestic and foreign researchers to study. According to the present situation that a single segmentation algorithm cant accomplish the complex task of medical image segmentation generated by the imaging pattern of CT, MRI and PET, many domestic and foreign scholars have done a lot of work and lots of effective integration of multiple segmentation algorithms have been presented in recent years. Specifically, the hybrid segmentation algorithm makes use of the original gray scale features of image, the images gradient features, geometric and spatial characteristics, transform features and statistical features, all of which are combined into a multidimensional feature vector and followed by the multifeature analysis. How to combine and take advantage of their strong points and get a better segmentation result is the key and thus becoming the recent focus of investigation. Therefore, the fusion algorithm based on multiple segmentation algorithms has become the development trend of image segmentation. Wang [1] proposed a kind of medical image sequence segmentation algorithm combining threshold segmentation with active contour model segmentation. Aimed at the
This work is financially supported by 211 Project of Hebei University of Technology.

The level set method was initially proposed in order to solve the changing process of flame shape based on thermodynamic equation by Osher and Sethian [5][6]. The level set method is a method of geometric deformable model and it is also the effective calculation tool in dealing with geometric topology changes during the evolution process of closed kinematic interface. The basic idea of the level set method is to describe a curve or surface used for evolving as the zero level set embedded in a one higher dimensional function ( X , t ) , through the evolution of this higher dimensional function to evolve the zero level set which is embedded in the function implicitly. In the level set method, the curve is implicitly expressed as the isoline of the higher dimensional function which has the same value at a given time. When handling the curve evolution problem through the level set method, we dont need to calculate the expression after the curve evolution but update level set function in the plane coordinate according to certain rules and then find out the position of zero level set, that is, the location and shape of the curve which has been evolved.

978-0-7695-4249-2/10 $26.00 2010 IEEE DOI 10.1109/ICINIS.2010.181

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Level set functions evolution satisfies the following differential equation:

t + F = 0

(1)

to achieve satisfactory segmentation results. People have been committed to make the images gradient information and the regions global information work together to improve the image segmentation results. The statistical features in the area can be found according to the zero level set and it can be seen that it is similar to the statistical features of the object which is waiting to be segmented, finally redefine the speed function of the level set method under the similarity between every regions statistical properties. Obtain the statistical characteristics of target, the statistical features of the region surrounded by zero level set can be seen similar as the targets, be denoted by

where F is the speed function for the outer normal direction and it controls the curves movement. Generally, F includes the items related to image (such as gradient information, etc.) and the items about the curves geometrical shape (such as the curvature, etc.). Zero level set, the final evolution of level set function corresponds to the objective contour curve:

,
(2)

( X , t) = 0

The the speed function can be calculated by Eq. (3) as follows.

F ( x) = A( x) P( x) + Z ( x)

(3)

where A represents advection, P is propagation, Z is spatial modifier, , , represent the weights, which are used to control the effect on the curve evolution, and is the mean curvature. Fast marching method is a fast implementation for level set algorithm [7]. Fast marching method has two key issues when applied to image segmentation: (1) the form of speed item, and (2) the enactment of stop criterion. On the one hand, only the speed item is related to images nature, so it will bring in a direct impact on the effect of image segmentation; on the other hand, in the fast marching method, the rate is always greater than or equal to 0, once the evolution curve over the target edge it cannot retreat, so it appears that the determination of stop criterion is very important. So far, in the study of fast marching method, the item of speed has the following two major forms:

regions statistical characteristics, its value can be determined according to the nature of the image. This paper only the mean and variance of gray scale are used and we set SF0,1 and SF0,2 as the mean and variance, respectively.

{SF

0, j

|1 j m} , where m is the number of

Study the statistical characteristics of the region surrounded by all points of the evolution curve at different times, then calculate the similarity between them and the targets statistical characteristics: Smi , j

Smi , j =

1 m SFi, j SF0, j m j =1

(6)

Define a new speed function based on the improved similarity information field:

F =e
where

a Smi , j

(7)

a is positive.

F =e
and

a I ( x , y )

a>0

(4)

F=

1 1 + a I ( x, y )

a>0
(5)

where is a constant, I ( x, y ) is the gradient of image

I ( x, y ) . As can be seen from the two speed functions above, the item of speed is the decreasing function of image gray gradient amplitude.
III. A. THRESHOLD-BASED LEVEL SET SEGMENTATION METHOD
Figure 1. Propagation based on threshold segmentation.

Improved Speed Function

Speed function F ( x, y ) depends on the gradient information, without full use of the image regions global information. Therefore, the fuzzy boundary of image is difficult

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B. Flowchart of the Algorithm As the massive medical image data, it is necessary to improve the accuracy and speed of segmentation. Threshold segmentation makes use of the images original gray scale characteristics and level set segmentation uses the images gradient features, we introduce the threshold segmentation method to the level set algorithm, the propagation coefficient function P ( x ) in Eq. (3) is calculated through Eq. (8) according to the high and low threshold U and L of the image g ( x) . The data points arrival time can be controlled by the function

Set the region surrounded by zero level set as , the features of can be seen similar to the undivided targets statistical characteristics, calculate SF0,1 ,

SF0,2 .
According to Eq. (6) calculate the similarity between the region occupied by all points of current evolution curve and the target. Make use of the new speed function combined with the level set method based on threshold for evolution. Obtain the final segmentation results. IV. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS AND ANALYSIS

P ( x) . As shown in Figure 1, when the value is P ( x) is a positive; when the value is beyond the scope, P ( x ) is a negative value. When the surface
between U and L, function begins to evolve, the gray range value is controlled in a certain limit which makes the evolution curve evolve within the effective threshold range set by propagation function, the evolution curve based on this will be exactly in the target edge, in this way the edge leakage will be avoided and a desired segmentation results will be obtained.

g (x ) L P ( x) = U g (x )

g ( x) <

(U L ) L
2

According to the principle above, the level set segmentation method based on threshold has been carried out with VC++ and ITK. We manually selected the seed points and use the level set algorithm and threshold-based level set method separately for the segmentation of original input image. The original image is shown in Figure 3.

(8)

Otherwise

Shown in Figure 2 is the flowchart of level set segmentation algorithm based on threshold. The basic steps can be described as follows:
Read image Anisotropic diffusion filtering Read image High threshold (U) Low threshold (L)
Figure 3. Original image.

Fast marching method

Zero level set

Threshold-based level set segmentation

In order to show the segmentation effect of the proposed method, we separately used the simple level set method and the proposed threshold-based level set method to segment the same interested region. The comparison of segmentation results are shown in Figures 4 and 5.

Output the segmentation results

Figure 2. Flowchart of threshold-based level set segmentation.

Image processing: Before the level set algorithm, the original image is preprocessed by anisotropic diffusion filter firstly in order to enhance the image edge and filter noise, thus inhibiting the over-segmentation caused by noise.

Figure 4. The image after level set segmentation.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENT The authors would like to thank the Service Center for Experts and Scholars of Hebei Province (China), the 211 Project of Hebei University of Technology, for their financial support. REFERENCES
[1] Jun Wang, Image segmentation and 3D reconstruction based on MRI image of the brain, MS Thesis. Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China, 2004. [2] Liang Zou, Research on edge extraction in MRI brain images based on snake, MS Thesis. Tianjin University, Tianjin, China, 2004. [3] Qian Li Research on segmentation of brain tumor based on active contour model, MS Thesis. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China, 2007. [4] Fuping Zhu, Jie Tian, Yao Lin et al. Medical image segmentation based on level set method, Journal of Software, 2002, 9(13), pp.1867-1871. [5] S. Osther, J. A. Sethian, Fronts propagating with curvature dependent speed: Algorithms based on Hamilton-Jacobi formulation, Journal of Computational Physics. 1988, 79, pp.12-49. [6] J. A. Sethian, Level set methods and fast marching methods: Evolving interfaces in computational geometry, Fluid Mechanics, Computer Vision and Materials Science. Cambridge University Press, London, UK, 1999. [7] J. Sethian, Level set methods andfast marching methods, Cambridge University Press, 1999. [8] A-R. Masouri, B. Sirivong, J. Konrad, Multiple motion segmentation with level sets, In Proceedings of the SPIE, 2000, (3974), pp.584-595. [9] Sethian, J. A. Fast marching methods, SIAM Review, 1999, 41(2), pp.199-235. [10] J. A. Sethian, A fast marching level set method for monotonically advancing fronts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1996, (93), pp.1591-1595. [11] Yu Hui Min, You Yu Sai, Multi-athletic target detection and segmentation based on level set, Journal of Zhejiang University, 2007, 41(3), pp.412-417.

Figure 5. The same image after the proposed threshold-based level set method.

From Figure 4 and Figure 5, it can be seen that the level set method based on threshold has a clearer, more complete segmentation result and a higher accuracy. By using the level set method, the smoothness of evolution surface has been maintained and the phenomenon of edge leakage has been avoided. V. CONCLUSIONS

A novel medical image segmentation method that combines the threshold segmentation method with the fast marching method was presented. The threshold segmentation method can effectively control the diffusion coefficient of curve within the threshold set, whereas in the fast marching method, redefinition of the speed function according to the similarity between every regions statistical properties can make the speed function have selectivity and global superiority. The examples show that the segmentation effect can be greatly improved and the speed of segmentation also can be increased. The future work will be focused on comparative investigation of the presented approach and the others.

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