DIGITAL IMAGE THRESHOLDING, BASED ON TOPOLOGICAL STABLE-STATE

A new approach for image segmentation for scenes that contain distinct objects is presented. A sequence of graphs N-s(t) is defined, where N -s(t) is the number of connected objects composed of at least s pixels , for the image thresholded at t. The sequence of graphs is built in a lmost linear time complexity, namely at O(alpha(n, n). n), where alpha (n, n) is the inverse of the Ackermann function, and n is the number o f pixels in the image. Stable states on the graph in the appropriate ' 'resolution'' s correspond to threshold values that yield a segmentat ion similar to a human observer. The relevance of a Percolation model to the graphs N-s(t) is discussed.