Spatial kernel K-harmonic means clustering for multi-spectral image segmentation

The problem of image segmentation using intensity clustering approaches has been addressed in the literature. Grouping pixels of similar intensity to form clusters in an image have been tackled using a number of methods, such as the K-means (KM) algorithm. The K-harmonic means (KHM) was proposed to overcome the sensitivity of KM to centre initialisation. The use of a spatial kernel-based KHM (SKKHM) algorithm on the problem of image segmentation has been investigated. Instead of the original Euclidean intensity distance, a robust kernel-based KHM metric is employed to reduce the effect of outliers and noise. Spatial image information is also incorporated in the proposed clustering scheme, derived from Markov random field modelling. An extension of the proposed algorithm to multi-spectral imaging applications is also presented. Experimental results for both single-channel and multi-channel images demonstrate the robust performance of the proposed SKKHM algorithm.