Title
Block-Matching Fuzzy C-Means clustering algorithm for segmentation of color images degraded with Gaussian noise.
Abstract
In this paper, we present the Block-Matching Fuzzy C-Means (BMFCM) clustering algorithm to segment RGB color images degraded with Additive White Gaussian Noise (AWGN). The contribution of this paper is threefold, namely, noise level estimation, denoising and segmentation. First, two Additive White Gaussian Noise estimation algorithms are proposed to compute the noise variance of the observed noisy color image. Second, we propose an image denoising method based on the enhanced sparse representation using a Block-Matching approach. Third, the Block-Matching Fuzzy C-Means clustering algorithm is proposed. The motivation behind the proposed clustering algorithm is to improve the characteristics of the standard Fuzzy C-Means algorithm, and apply them to segment noisy color images. For this reason, the local information of every color component is incorporated in the Fuzzy C-Means using the proposed Block-Matching based filter as an Additive White Gaussian Noise estimator to determine whether the central pixel in a sliding window is noisy. The presented Additive White Gaussian Noise estimation algorithms are used in the proposed Block-matching method to improve its accuracy. The chromatic subspace of the IJK color space is also applied in the proposed clustering approach providing better segmentation results and reducing the processing time; this is because the algorithm is reduced in a bi-dimensional clustering approach. Finally, visual and numerical experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithms provide better segmentation results in the presence and absence of AWGN in comparison with other segmentation methods.
Year
DOI
Venue
2018
10.1016/j.engappai.2018.04.026
Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence
Keywords
Field
DocType
Additive White Gaussian Noise,Block-Matching,Fuzzy C-Means,Color images,Segmentation
Noise reduction,Color space,Pattern recognition,Computer science,Sparse approximation,RGB color model,Artificial intelligence,Cluster analysis,Additive white Gaussian noise,Gaussian noise,Machine learning,Color image
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
73
0952-1976
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.35
25
8