Closed-boundary extraction of cancer cells using fuzzy edge linking technique

Edge linking is an important task in a boundary extraction problem. In this paper, a fuzzy approach is proposed. The proposed system consists of a fuzzy edge detection module and a fuzzy edge linking module, respectively. The fuzzy edge detector gives a fuzzy membership matrix and an initial edge map. Once the initial edge map is obtained, the pairing of the start and end points of the edges as well as the linking of appropriate segments of edges in the map can be found using the fuzzy edge linking module, as follows: First, for any start point, the corresponding end point is found by searching for the shortest distance between the points. Second, for any start point as a reference point, we search for the greatest fuzzy membership value among its neighbors, and connect the reference point to that neighbor. Then with that neighbor as the new reference point, this step of searching is repeated until the end point is reached. After applying the above technique to all the pairs of start and end points, all the open boundaries will be connected. A simulation evaluation of the proposed technique was carried out on an image “Cancer”. The simulation result shows an improvement on the outlines of the cancer cells. The proposed algorithm is simple and low cost, and can be implemented easily in some real-time applications.