Nucleus and cytoplast contour detector from a cervical smear image

In this paper, a nucleus and cytoplast contour detector (NCC detector) is presented to automatically detect the cytoplast and nucleus contours of a cell in a cervical smear image. The NCC detector uses the adaptable threshold decision (ATD) method to separate the cell from the cervical smear image, and then uses the maximal gray-level-gradient-difference (MGLGD) method, proposed in this paper, to extract the nucleus from the cell. The experimental results show that the NCC detector is superior to two existing methods, the gradient vector flow-active contour model (GVF-ACM) and the edge enhancement nucleus and cytoplast contour (ENNCC) detector, in segmenting the cytoplast and nucleus of a cell.► In this study, an NCC detector is proposed to automatically detect the cytoplast and nucleus contours of cell in a cervical smear image. ► The NCC detector employs the adaptable threshold decision (ATD) method to separate the cell from the cervical smear image, and then uses the maximal gray-level-gradient-difference (MGLGD) method to extract the nucleus from the cell. ► Experimental results tell that the NCC detector is better than GVF-ACM and ENNCC detector in segmenting the cytoplast and nucleus of a cell.