Interactive image segmentation using particle competition and cooperation

Many interactive image processing approaches are based on semi-supervised learning, which employ both labeled and unlabeled data in its training process. In the interactive image segmentation problem, a human specialist labels some pixels of an object while the semi-supervised algorithm labels the remaining pixels of the segment. The particle competition and cooperation model is a recent graph-based semi-supervised learning approach. It employs particles walking in a graph to classify the data items corresponding to graph nodes. Each particle group aims to dominate most unlabeled nodes, spreading their label, and preventing enemy particles invasion. In this paper, the particle competition and cooperation model is extended to perform interactive image segmentation. Each image pixel is converted into a graph node, which is connected to its nearest neighbors according to their visual features and location in the original image. Labeled pixel generates particles that propagate their label to the unlabeled pixels. The particle model also takes the contributions from the adjacent pixels to classify less confident labeled pixels. Computer simulations are performed on real-world images, including images from the Microsoft GrabCut dataset, which allows a straightly comparison with other techniques. The segmentation results show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.