Graph-based features for texture discrimination

Graph-based features, such as the number of connected components, edges of a given orientation and vertices per unit area, and the number of vertices and pixels per connected component, are proposed for the analysis of textures which consist of structural elements. The proposed set of features is compared with features obtained by a typical filter-based scheme which makes use of Gabor filters. The discrimination properties of the two types of features are assessed by evaluating the separability of sets of feature vectors which are derived from different types of texture using the Mahalanobis distance. The graph-based features are shown to be superior to the filter-based features for the class of concerned textures. They are particularly suited for discrimination between textures which have the same spatial and orientation regularity but consist of elements of different forms