Activity driven nonlinear diffusion for color image watershed segmentation

Nonlinear diffusion processes and watershed algorithms have been well studied for gray-scale image segmentation. In this paper we extend the use of these techniques to color or multichannel images. First, we formulate a general definition for a nonlinear diffusion process using the concept of an activity image that can be calculated for several image components. Then, we explain how the final activity image, obtained as a result of the nonlinear diffusion process, is fed through a watershed algorithm, yielding the segmentation of the image. The qualitative performance of the algorithm is illustrated with results for both gray-scale and color photographic images. Finally, we discuss the segmentation results obtained using a few well-known color spaces and demonstrate that a color principal component analysis gives the best results. (C) 1999 SPIE and IS&T. [S1017-9909(99)00503-6].