Robust segmentation by cutting across a stack of gamma transformed images

Abstract

Medical image segmentation appears to be governed by the global intensity level and should be robust to local intensity fluctuation. We develop an efficient spectral graph method which seeks the best segmentation on a stack of gamma transformed versions of the original image. Each gamma image produces two types of grouping cues operating at different ranges: Short-range attraction pulls pixels towards region centers, while long-range repulsion pushes pixels away from region boundaries. With rough pixel correspondence between gamma images, we obtain an aligned cue stack for the original image. Our experimental results demonstrate that cutting across the entire gamma stack delivers more accurate segmentations than commonly used watershed algorithms. © 2009 Springer.