A hierarchical segmentation for image processing

Abstract

Segmentation algorithms are well known in the field of image processing. In this work we propose an efficient and polynomial algorithm for image segmentation based on fuzzy set theory. The main difference with the classical segmentation algorithms is in the output given by the segmentation process. Since the classical output for segmentation algorithms give us the homogeneous regions in the image, our proposal is to produce an hierarchical information (in a similar way as a dendrogam does in classical clustering methods) of how the groups are formed in the image, from the initial situation in which all pixels are in the same group to the final situation in which the whole image is divided in the minimal information units.