Cuckoo search and firefly algorithm applied to multilevel image thresholding

Abstract

Multilevel image thresholding is a technique widely used in image processing, most often for segmentation. Exhaustive search is computationally prohibitively expensive since the number of possible thresholds to be examined grows exponentially with the number of desirable thresholds. Swarm intelligence metaheuristics have been used successfully for such hard optimization problems. In this chapter we investigate performance of two relatively new swarm intelligence algorithms, cuckoo search and firefly algorithm, applied to multilevel image thresholding. Particle swarm optimization and differential evolution algorithms have also been implemented for comparison. Two different objective functions, Kapur's maximum entropy thresholding function and multi Otsu between-class variance, were used on standard benchmark images with known optima from exhaustive search (up to five threshold points). Results show that both, cuckoo search and firefly algorithm, exhibit superior performance and robustness. © 2014 Springer International Publishing Switzerland.