Abstract
Magnetic resonance images have great significance for doctors’ analysis and diagnosis of diseases. One difficulty in segmenting magnetic resonance images is associated with the intensity inhomogeneity. In this paper, we propose an improved active contour model combining local and global information dynamically to segment images with intensity inhomogeneity. Besides, the atlas term is added into our energy functional, which improves the segmentation accuracy by restricting the segmented range around the location of the given atlas and making the contour move toward a position near the atlas. In this paper, we first present the multi-phase formulation of our model. Then, our model is applied to segment a total of 35 different brain magnetic resonance images with lesions. We also compare the performance of our model with other models, which can handle inhomogeneous images to some extent. Experimental results demonstrate that our model has promising performance for these challenging brain magnetic resonance images. Accuracy, efficiency and robustness of the proposed model have also been demonstrated by the numerical results and comparisons with other models.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Chan, T.F., Vese, L.A.: Active contours without edges. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 10(2), 266–277 (2001)
Vese, L.A., Chan, T.F.: A multiphase level set framework for image segmentation using the Mumford and Shah model. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 50(3), 271–293 (2002)
Wang, L., Chen, G.Q., Shi, D., Chang, Y., Chan, S.X., Pu, J.T., Yang, X.D.: Active contours driven by edge entropy fitting energy for image segmentation. Signal Process. 149, 27–35 (2018)
Ma, W.Y., Manjunath, B.: Edgeflow: A technique for boundary detection and image segmentation. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 9(8), 1507–1520 (2000)
Arifina, A.Z., Asano, A.: Image segmentation by histogram thresholding using hierarchical cluster analysis. Pattern Recogn. Lett. 27(13), 1515–1521 (2006)
Chang, Y.L., Li, X.: Adaptive image region-growing. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 3(6), 868–872 (1994)
Kass, M., Witkin, A., Terzopoulos, D.: Snakes: active contour models. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 1(4), 321–331 (1988)
Caselles, V., Kimmel, R., Sapiro, G.: Geodesic active contours. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 22(1), 61–79 (1997)
Li, C., Kao, C.Y., Gore, J., Ding, Z.: Implicit active contours driven by local binary fitting energy. In: Proceedings of IEEE Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), pp. 1–7. IEEE Computer Society, Washington, DC, USA (2007)
Li, C., Kao, C.Y., Gore, J., Ding, Z.: Minimization of region-scalable fitting energy for image segmentation. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 17(10), 1940–1949 (2008)
Tian, D., Fan, L.N.: A brain MR images segmentation method based on SOM neural network. International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedical Engineering, pp. 686–689 (2007)
Moeskops, P., Viergever, M.A.: Automatic segmentation of MR brain images with a convolutional neural network. IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging 35(5), 1252–1261 (2017)
Ma, C., Luo, G., Wang, K.: Concatenated and connected random forests with multiscale patch driven active contour model for automated brain tumor segmentation of MR images. IEEE Trans. Med. Imaging. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMI.2018.2805821 (2018)
Ilunga-Mbuyamba, E., Avina-Cervantes, J., Cepeda-Negrete, J., Ibarra-Manzano, M., Chalopin, C.: Automatic selection of localized region-based active contour models using image content analysis applied to brain tumor segmentation. Comput. Biol. Med. 91, 69–79 (2017)
Koch, L.M., Rajchl, M., Bai, W., Baumgartner, C.F., Tong, T., Passeratpalmbach, J., Aljabar, P., Rueckert, D.: Multi-atlas segmentation using partially annotated data: methods and annotation strategies. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. 40(7), 1683–1696 (2018)
Huo, J., Wu, J., Cao, J.W., Wang, G.H.: Supervoxel based method for multi-atlas segmentation of brain MR images. Neuroimage 175, 201–214 (2018)
Del Re, E.C., Gao, Y., Eckbo, R., Petryshen, T.L., Blokland, G.A.M., Seidman, L.J., Konishi, J., Goldstein, J.M., Mccarley, R.W., Shenton, M.E.: A new MRI masking technique based on multi-atlas brain segmentation in controls and schizophrenia: a rapid and viable alternative to manual masking. J. Neuroimaging 26(1), 28–36 (2016)
Iglesias, J.E., Sabuncu, M.R., Van Leemput, K.: A unified framework for cross-modality multi-atlas segmentation of brain MRI. Med. Image Anal. 17(8), 1181–1191 (2013)
Pratondo, A., Chui, C.K., Ong, S.H.: Integrating machine learning with region-based active contour models in medical image segmentation. J. Vis. Commun. Image Represent. 43, 1–9 (2017)
Wang, L., Li, C., Sun, Q., Xia, D., Kao, C.Y.: Active contours driven by local and global intensity fitting energy with application to brain MR image segmentation. J. Comput. Med. Imaging Graph. 33(7), 520–531 (2009)
Li, C., Xu, C., Gui, C., Fox, M.D.: Distance regularized level set evolution and its application to image segmentation. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 19(12), 3243–3254 (2010)
Goldstein, T., Osher, S.: The split Bregman method for L1 regularized problems. SIAM J. Imaging Sci. 2(2), 323–343 (2009)
Goldstein, T., Bresson, X., Osher, S.: Geometric applications of the split Bregman method: segmentation and surface reconstruction. SIAM J. Appl. Math. 45(1–3), 272–293 (2009)
Yang, Y., Li, C., Kao, C.Y., Osher, S.: Split Bregman method for minimization of region-scalable fitting energy for image segmentation. In: Proceedings of International Symposium on Visual Computing, vol. 6454 LNCS, pp. 117–128. Las Vegas, Nevada, USA (2010)
Yang, Y., Wu, B.: Convex image segmentation model based on local and global intensity fitting energy and split Bregman method. J. Appl. Math. 2012, Article ID 692,589 (2012)
Yang, Y., Wu, B.: Split Bregman method for minimization of improved active contour model combining local and global information dynamically. J. Math. Anal. Appl. 389(1), 351–366 (2012)
Yang, Y., Shu, X., Zhong, S.: Active contour model combining local and global information dynamically with application to segment brain MR images. In: Proceedings of 2017 International Conference on Biometrics Engineering and Application (ICBEA 2017), vol. Part F128052, pp. 45–49. Hong Kong (2017)
Huttenlocher, D.P., Klanderman, G.A., Rucklidge, W.A.: Comparing images using the Hausdorff distance. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 15(9), 850–863 (1993)
Sachdeva, J., Kumar, V., Gupta, I., Khandelwal, N., Ahuja, C.K.: A novel content-based active contour model for brain tumor segmentation. Magn. Reson. Imaging 30(5), 694–715 (2012)
Weiss, N., Rueckert, D., Rao, A.: Multiple sclerosis lesion segmentation using dictionary learning and sparse coding. In: 16th International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI), Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 8149. Nagoya Univ, Nagoya, JAPAN, pp. 735–742 (2013)
Mechrez, R., Goldberger, J., Greenspan, H.: Patch-based segmentation with spatial consistency: application to MS lesions in brain MRI. Int. J. Biomed. Imaging 2016(1), Article ID 7952 541
Acknowledgements
This work is supported by Shenzhen Fundamental Research Plan (No. JCYJ20160505175141489).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Yang, Y., Jia, W., Shu, X. et al. Level Set Formulation Based on Edge and Region Information with Application to Accurate Lesion Segmentation of Brain Magnetic Resonance Images. J Optim Theory Appl 182, 797–815 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10957-018-01451-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10957-018-01451-1