Work

Splitting and Merging for Active Contours: Plug-and-Play

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: This study tackles the challenge of splitting and merging in parametric active contours or snakes. The proposed method comprises three stages: (1) fully 4-connected interpolation, (2) snake splitting, and (3) snakes merging. For this purpose, first, the coordinates of snake points are separated into two corrupted 1D signals, with missing X/Y samples in the signals representing missing snakes’ coordinates. These missing X/Y samples are estimated using a constrained Tikhonov regularisation model, ensuring fully 4-connected snakes. Next, crossing points are identified by plotting snake points onto a raster matrix, detecting overlaps where multiple snake points occupy the same raster cell. Finally, snakes are split or merged by extracting snake points between crossing snake points that form a loop using a heuristic approach. Experimental results on the boundary detection of enamel in Micro-CT images and coronary arteries’ lumen in CT images demonstrate the proposed method’s ability to handle contour splitting and merging effectively.

Source: Mathematics

DOI: 10.3390/math13060991

Authors: Mojtaba Lashgari, Abhirup Banerjee, Hossein Rabbani

Institutions: University of Oxford, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences

Language: English

Topic: Medical Image Segmentation Techniques

Subfield: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $3,137

Funder: Royal Society