Abstract
Due to the advent of computer technology image-processing techniques have become increasingly important in a wide variety of applications. Image segmentation is a classic subject in the field of image processing and also is a hotspot and focus of image processing techniques. Several general-purpose algorithms and techniques have been developed for image segmentation. Since there is no general solution to the image segmentation problem, these techniques often have to be combined with domain knowledge in order to effectively solve an image segmentation problem for a problem domain. This paper presents a comparative study of the basic Block-Based image segmentation techniques.
(1) Introduction
Figure-ground segmentation referred as a target or foreground other part is called background is an important problem i.e., extract and separate them in order to identify and analyze object, in image processing [2, 3]. Segmentation is the process that subdivides an image into its constituent parts or objects [1...22]. The level to which this subdivision is carried out depends on the problem being solved, i.e., the segmentation should stop when the objects of interest in an application have been isolated. Image Engineering illustrates the level of the image segmentation in image processing. Image Engineering can be divided into three levels [1, 3] as shown in Fig. 1. Image processing is low-level operations; it operated on the pixel-level. Starts with one image and produces a modified version, image into another form, of the same, or the transformation between the images and improves the visual effects of image. Image processing following three stages each is subdivided into different categories [1, 3]:
1) Reconstruction (Correction)
a. Restoration: Removal or minimization of image degradations. Two types: Radiometric and Geometric.
b. Reconstruction: Derive an image, two or higher dimensional, of inside view from several one-dim projections.
c. Mosaic: Combining of two or more patches of image. Required to get the view of the entire area.
2) Transformation
a. Contrast stretching: Homogeneous images which do not have much change in their levels.
b. Noise filtering: to filter the unnecessary information. Filters like low pass, high pass, mean, median etc...
c. Histogram modification: E.g., Histogram Equalization.
d. Data compression: Higher compressed each pixel by: DCT by JPEG or Wavelet for with minimum loss.
e. Rotation: In mosaic to match with the second image. 3-pass shear is a common.
Conclusion
Block image segmentation methods are two main categories: region based and edge or boundary based method and each of them is divided into several techniques. The image is segmented using a series of decision and there is no universal segmentation method for all kinds of images and also an image can be segmented by using different segmentation methods. Image segmentation is a challenge in image processing and the researchers would evaluate their image segmentation techniques by using one or more of the following evaluation methods in Fig.18..