Gaussian Markov random field based improved texture descriptor for image segmentation

This paper proposes a novel robust texture descriptor based on Gaussian Markov random fields (GMRFs). A spatially localized parameter estimation technique using local linear regression is performed and the distributions of local parameter estimates are constructed to formulate the texture features. The inconsistencies arising in localized parameter estimation are addressed by applying generalized inverse, regularization and an estimation window size selection criterion. The texture descriptors are named as local parameter histograms (LPHs) and are used in texture segmentation with the k-means clustering algorithm. The segmentation results on general texture datasets demonstrate that LPH descriptors significantly improve the performance of classical GMRF features and achieve better results compared to the state-of-the-art texture descriptors based on local feature distributions. Impressive natural image segmentation results are also achieved and comparisons to the other standard natural image segmentation algorithms are also presented. LPH descriptors produce promising texture features that integrate both statistical and structural information about a texture. The region boundary localization can be further improved by integrating colour information and using advanced segmentation algorithms. (C) 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.