A reliable region information driven kriging-assisted multiobjective rough fuzzy clustering algorithm for color image segmentation

Abstract

Multiobjective clustering algorithms (MOCAs) are becoming increasingly popular with the merit of segmenting images from multiple perspectives. The performances of MOCAs highly depend on their fitness functions. However, most existing MOCAs adopt one pair of complementary fitness functions, which always measure intra-class compactness and inter-class separation, respectively. This may result in insufficient ability to recognize and mine feature structures from complex images. Moreover, information within color images, such as region information and uncertain information, can barely receive enough attention in MOCAs. To resolve these problems, we propose a reliable region information driven Kriging-assisted multiobjective rough fuzzy clustering algorithm (RRI-KMRFC). Firstly, a reliability-based region information extraction strategy (RRIES) is designed to obtain reliable image information with satisfactory regional homogeneity and abundant image details. Secondly, the derived region information is used to construct three complementary fitness functions, focusing on rough intra-class compactness, rough inter-class separation, and regional consistency, respectively. Such fitness functions can effectively identify the clustering structure, maintain contour details, and characterize uncertain information from color images. To efficiently optimize the proposed functions, an incremental Kriging-assisted evolutionary framework is presented to decrease the expensive function evaluations in which an improved infill sampling strategy is devised to assist in finding unexplored areas in the decision space. Finally, a rough fuzzy clustering validity index with reliable region information is proposed to select the optimal trade-off solution. Experiments performed on Berkeley and Weizmann images confirm the effectiveness and robustness of RRI-KMRFC.