Unification of image segmentation and edge detection

A method of simultaneous image segmentation and edge detection based on grey-level cooccurrence matrices is described. An analysis of the distributions within a cooccurrence matrix defines an initial pixel classification into both region and interior or boundary classes. Local consistency of pixel classification is enforced by minimising the entropy of local region and boundary information, where region information is expressed by conditional probabilities, estimated from the cooccurrence matrices, and boundary information by conditional probabilities which are determined a priori. The method robustly segments an image into homogeneous areas and generates an edge map. The technique extends easily to general edge operators; examples are given of the techniques applied to both synthetic and infrared imagery for the (1-1) and Canny edge operators. The results are compared with other techniques.