A Markov random field image segmentation model for color textured images

We propose a Markov random field (MRF) image segmentation model, which aims at combining color and texture features. The theoretical framework relies on Bayesian estimation via combinatorial optimization (simulated annealing). The segmentation is obtained by classifying the pixels into different pixel classes. These classes are represented by multi-variate Gaussian distributions. Thus, the only hypothesis about the nature of the features is that an additive Gaussian noise model is suitable to describe the feature distribution belonging to a given class. Here, we use the perceptually uniform CIE-L*u*v* color values as color features and a set of Gabor filters as texture features. Gaussian parameters are either computed using a training data set or estimated from the input image. We also propose a parameter estimation method using the EM algorithm. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the performance of our method on both synthetic and natural color images. q 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.