Curve evolution and segmentation functionals: application to color images

Curve evolution has developed into an important tool in computer vision and has been applied to a wide variety of problems such as smoothing of shapes, shape analysis and shape recovery. The different versions of curve evolution used in computer vision together with the preprocessing step of constructing an edge-strength function can be integrated in the form of a new segmentation functional. The new functional permits junctions such as triple points to develop. The numerical solutions obtained retain sharp discontinuities or “shocks”, thus providing sharp demarcation of object boundaries. The new segmentation functional is extended for application to vector-valued features such as color