Watershed segmentation using prior shape and appearance knowledge

Watershed transformation is a common technique for image segmentation. However, its use for automatic medical image segmentation has been limited particularly due to oversegmentation and sensitivity to noise. Employing prior shape knowledge has demonstrated robust improvements to medical image segmentation algorithms. We propose a novel method for enhancing watershed segmentation by utilizing prior shape and appearance knowledge. Our method iteratively aligns a shape histogram with the result of an improved k-means clustering algorithm of the watershed segments. Quantitative validation of magnetic resonance imaging segmentation results supports the robust nature of our method. 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.