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Automatic tongue image segmentation based on gradient vector flow and region merging

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Abstract

This paper presents a region merging-based automatic tongue segmentation method. First, gradient vector flow is modified as a scalar diffusion equation to diffuse the tongue image while preserving the edge structures of tongue body. Then the diffused tongue image is segmented into many small regions by using the watershed algorithm. Third, the maximal similarity-based region merging is used to extract the tongue body area under the control of tongue marker. Finally, the snake algorithm is used to refine the region merging result by setting the extracted tongue contour as the initial curve. The proposed method is qualitatively tested on 200 images by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners and quantitatively tested on 50 tongue images using the receiver operating characteristic analysis. Compared with the previous active contour model-based bi-elliptical deformable contour algorithm, the proposed method greatly enhances the segmentation performance, and it could reliably extract the tongue body from different types of tongue images.

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Acknowledgments

Authors thank sincerely Bo Huang, Li Liu and Zhenhua Guo for the great help in this paper. This work is partially supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) Key Overseas Project under Grant No. 60620160097 and the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC) under Grant No. 61003151 and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities under Grant No. QN2009091 and Northwest A & F University Research Foundation under Grant No. Z111020902.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Engineering, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, People’s Republic of China

    Jifeng Ning

  2. State Key Laboratory of Integrated Service Networks, Xidian University, Xi’an, People’s Republic of China

    Jifeng Ning & Chengke Wu

  3. Biometrics Research Center, Department of Computing, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China

    Jifeng Ning, David Zhang & Feng Yue

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  1. Jifeng Ning
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  2. David Zhang
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Correspondence to Jifeng Ning.

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Ning, J., Zhang, D., Wu, C. et al. Automatic tongue image segmentation based on gradient vector flow and region merging. Neural Comput & Applic 21, 1819–1826 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-010-0484-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00521-010-0484-3

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