Interactive object segmentation in digital images by foreground/background region classification with hierarchical queues

Abstract

In this paper, we present work on interactive object segmentation in digital images. The user can employ the proposed work to separate the target object from the background easily. After marker drawing of foreground and background from a user, the user interface shows the target object in original color and the background in some other specific color, respectively. Compared with the tedious steps of Adobe Photoshop, the user can interactively approximate the contour of the target object with more efficiency. Our proposed algorithm is based on Foreground/Background region classification by comparing the similarity of color information. At first, the user interface processes the input image by watershed segmentation to produce the segmented regions. Then, some unlabeled regions are assigned as foreground regions or background regions by marker drawing. After marker drawing, the remaining unlabeled regions are processed by Foreground/Background region classification. In our implementation, we also introduce hierarchical queues to store the unlabeled regions during the procedure of region classification. The target object is segmented after Foreground/Background region classification. In our experiments, the proposed algorithm provides output with high accuracy and low effort.