A human visual system-driven image segmentation algorithm

Abstract

This paper presents a novel image segmentation algorithm driven by human visual system (HVS) properties. Segmentation quality metrics, based on perceptual properties of HVS with respect to segmentation, are integrated into an energy function. The energy function encodes the HVS properties from both region-based and boundary-based perspectives, where the just-noticeable difference (JND) model is employed when calculating the difference between the image contents. Extensive experiments are carried out to compare the performances of three variations of the presented algorithm and several representative segmentation and clustering algorithms available in the literature. The results show superior performance of our approach.