Implementation of watershed based image segmentation algorithm in virtex II pro platform

Watershed transformation is a powerful technique that can be efficiently used for image segmentation. In this paper, we implement a watershed based segmentation algorithm on a Virtex II Pro platform. The main contribution of this work is the low execution time and minimal internal FPGA consumed resources. The proposed architecture includes two main blocs. First, a gradient of the image is generated using morphological operators (dilation-erosion). Then, watershed is applied to the resultant image based on immersion principle. The proposed implementation was optimized with respect to hardware resources occupation and speed, based on a codesign methodology. Our approach makes use of the potential software in Virtex II Pro platform enabled by the embedded processor power PC. Firstly, in a high design level, the whole design was done in powerPC. Then, the optimal design is carried out by analyzing the timing of the different portions of the algorithm and implementing the time extensive parts as hardware. This strategy leads to acceptable hardware resources occupation and a maximum frequency performance of approximately 100 MHz. As illustration, we apply our design to the segmentation of Cameraman image.