Cell image segmentation based on an improved watershed algorithm

The cell image segmentation has very high practical significance in medical diagnosis. But the cell image has the problems of accretive cells, incoherent cell boundary, and the internal cavity that make it difficult to image segmentation. In this paper, a watershed algorithm based on distance transform is proposed to solve images of cells adhesion. Firstly, image enhancement is carried out as the image preprocessing, then the OTSU threshold segmentation is used to rough segment the image, finally the watershed algorithm by optimizing the seed points is adopt for fine segmentation. Experiment results showed that the proposed algorithm is effectively solved the problems of cell adhesion and over-segmentation, the image segmentation accuracy is more than the traditional watershed algorithm, and remained the cell shape in maximum extent. Therefore, the watershed segmentation based on distance transformation transform is practical according to the accretive cell images.