Watershed segmentation of dermoscopy images using a watershed technique Journal Article
| Authors: | Wang, H.; Chen, X.; Moss, R. H.; Stanley, R. J.; Stoecker, W. V.; Celebi, M. E.; Szalapski, T. M.; Malters, J. M.; Grichnik, J. M.; Marghoob, A. A.; Rabinovitz, H. S.; Menzies, S. W. |
| Article Title: | Watershed segmentation of dermoscopy images using a watershed technique |
| Abstract: | Background/purpose: Automatic lesion segmentation is an important part of computer-based image analysis of pigmented skin lesions. In this research, a watershed algorithm is developed and investigated for adequacy of skin lesion segmentation in dermoscopy images. Methods: Hair, black border and vignette removal methods are introduced as preprocessing steps. The flooding variant of the watershed segmentation algorithm was implemented with novel features adapted to this domain. An outer bounding box, determined by a difference function derived from horizontal and vertical projection functions, is added to estimate the lesion area, and the lesion area error is reduced by a linear estimation function. As a post-processing step, a second-order B-Spline smoothing method is introduced to smooth the watershed border. Results: Using the average of three sets of dermatologist-drawn borders as the ground truth, an overall error of 15.98% was obtained using the watershed technique. Conclusion: The implementation of the flooding variant of the watershed algorithm presented here allows satisfactory automatic segmentation of pigmented skin lesions. © 2010 John Wiley & Sons A/S. |
| Keywords: | melanoma; models, biological; dermoscopy; image analysis; skin defect; skin pigmentation; skin neoplasms; oncology; algorithms; epiluminescence microscopy; algorithm; malignant melanoma; image processing, computer-assisted; segmentation; image processing; software; esthetic surgery; dermatology; measurement error; watershed; image segmentation; landforms; dermoscopy images; automatic segmentations; b-spline; bounding box; difference functions; ground truth; linear estimation; pigmented skin lesions; post processing; pre-processing step; removal method; second orders; skin lesion; smoothing methods; vertical projection; water-shed algorithm; watershed segmentation; watershed segmentation algorithm; imaging systems; splines; watersheds; vignette; watershed management |
| Journal Title: | Skin Research and Technology |
| Volume: | 16 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| ISSN: | 0909-752X |
| Publisher: | Wiley Blackwell |
| Date Published: | 2010-08-01 |
| Start Page: | 378 |
| End Page: | 384 |
| Language: | English |
| DOI: | 10.1111/j.1600-0846.2010.00445.x |
| PUBMED: | 20637008 |
| PROVIDER: | scopus |
| PMCID: | PMC3160671 |
| DOI/URL: | |
| Notes: | --- - "Cited By (since 1996): 1" - "Export Date: 20 April 2011" - "CODEN: SRTEF" - "Source: Scopus" |
