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Splitting and Merging for Active Contours: Plug-and-Play

Author

Listed:
  • Mojtaba Lashgari

    (Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK)

  • Abhirup Banerjee

    (Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7DQ, UK
    Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, Radcliffe Department of Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DU, UK)

  • Hossein Rabbani

    (Medical Image and Signal Processing Research Centre, School of Advanced Technologies in Medicine, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan 81746-73461, Iran)

Abstract

This study tackles the challenge of splitting and merging in parametric active contours or snakes. The proposed method comprises three stages: (1) fully 4-connected interpolation, (2) snake splitting, and (3) snakes merging. For this purpose, first, the coordinates of snake points are separated into two corrupted 1D signals, with missing X/Y samples in the signals representing missing snakes’ coordinates. These missing X/Y samples are estimated using a constrained Tikhonov regularisation model, ensuring fully 4-connected snakes. Next, crossing points are identified by plotting snake points onto a raster matrix, detecting overlaps where multiple snake points occupy the same raster cell. Finally, snakes are split or merged by extracting snake points between crossing snake points that form a loop using a heuristic approach. Experimental results on the boundary detection of enamel in Micro-CT images and coronary arteries’ lumen in CT images demonstrate the proposed method’s ability to handle contour splitting and merging effectively.

Suggested Citation

  • Mojtaba Lashgari & Abhirup Banerjee & Hossein Rabbani, 2025. "Splitting and Merging for Active Contours: Plug-and-Play," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-22, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jmathe:v:13:y:2025:i:6:p:991-:d:1614806
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