EDGE-REGION-BASED SEGMENTATION OF RANGE IMAGES

In this correspondence, we present a new computationally efficient three-dimensional (3-D) object segmentation technique. The technique is based on the detection of edges in the image. The edges can the classified as belonging to one of the three categories: fold edges, semistep edges (defined here), and boundary edges. The 3-D image is sliced to create equidepth contours (EDC's). Three types of critical points are extracted from the EDC's. A subset of the edge pixels is extracted first using these critical points. The edges are grown from these pixels through the application or some masks proposed in this correspondence. The constraints of the masks can be adjusted depending on the noise present in the image. The total computational effort is small since the masks are applied only over a small neighborhood of critical points (edge regions). Furthermore, the algorithm can be implemented in parallel, as edge growing from different regions can be carried out independently of each other.