Multiscale annealing for real-time unsupervised texture segmentation

We derive real-time global optimization algorithms for several clustering optimization methods used in unsupervised texture segmentation. Speed is achieved by exploiting the topological relation of features to design a multiscale optimization technique, while accuracy and global optimization properties are provided by a deterministic annealing method. Coarse grained costfunctions are derived for both central and sparse pairwise clustering, where the problem of coarsening sparse random graphs is solved by the concept of structured randomization. Annealing schedules and coarse-to-fine optimization are tightly coupled by a statistical convergence criterion derived from computational learning theory. The algorithms are benchmarked on Brodatz-like micro-texture mondrians. Results are presented for an autonomous robotics application