An interactive editing framework for electron microscopy image segmentation

Abstract

There are various automated segmentation algorithms for medical images. However, 100% accuracy may be hard to achieve because medical images usually have low contrast and high noise content. These segmentation errors may require manual correction. In this paper, we present an interactive editing framework that allows the user to quickly correct segmentation errors produced by automated segmentation algorithms. The framework includes two editing methods: (1) editing through multiple choice and (2) interactive editing through graph cuts. The first method provides a set of alternative segmentations generated from a confidence map that carries valuable information from multiple cues, such as the probability of a boundary, an intervening contour cue, and a soft segmentation by a random walker. The user can then choose the most acceptable one from those segmentation alternatives. The second method introduces an interactive editing tool where the user can interactively connect or disconnect presegmented regions. The editing task is posed as an energy minimization problem: We incorporate a set of constraints into the energy function and obtain an optimal solution via graph cuts. The results show that the proposed editing framework provides a promising solution for the efficient correction of incorrect segmentation results. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.