Applying deformable templates for cell image segmentation

This paper presents an automatic method. based on the deformable template a pproach, for cell image segmentation under severe noise conditions. We defi ne a new methodology, dividing the process into three parts: (1) obtain evi dence from the image about the location of the cells, (2) use this evidence to calculate an elliptical approximation of these locations; (3) refine ce ll boundaries using locally deforming models. We have designed a new algori thm to locate cells and propose an energy function to be used together with 3 stochastic deformable template model. Experimental results show that thi s approach for segmenting cell images is both Fast and robust, and that thi s methodology may be used for automatic classification as part of a compute r-aided medical decision making technique. (C) 2000 Pattern Recognition Soc iety. Published by Elsevier Science Ltd, All rights reserved.