Variations in relaxation labeling techniques

Abstract

Several issues concerning the behavior of relaxation labeling processes are examined in this paper. The performance of region relaxation is shown to be affected by the form of compatibility coefficients and the configuration of local neighborhoods. Three variants of the algorithm are explored on an artificially generated test image: relaxation with simple unary compatibility coefficients, probabilistic relaxation with piecewise-linear compatibility coefficients derived from conditional probabilities, and a form of discrete relaxation without compatibility coefficients. The compatibilities based upon conditional probabilities yield the only version that preserves image detail associated with spatially thin structures.