Road Segmentation by Watersheds Algorithms

A road segmentation technique is proposed based on a mathematical morphology tool called watershed transform. Starting from a coarse marker of the road to be segmented, we modify the gradient image of the scene and compute the watershed transform of this image. The result provides a fair segmentation of the road. The marker itself is produced by using the watershed transform, and a simplified representation of the initial image called graph-partition. The watershed transform allows a hierarchical description of the graph-partition image then used for marker extraction. The whole algorithm robust, little sensitive to noise and need no parameter setting. Other technique for selecting markers are also described. Many examples in various traffic situation are given.