Application of An Adaptive Self Organizing Feature Map to X-Ray Image Segmentation

In this paper, a neural network based approach using a self-organizing feature map is proposed for the segmentation of X ray images. A number of algorithms based on such approaches as histogram analysis, region growing, edge detection and pixel classification have been proposed for segmentation of general images. However, few approaches have been applied to X ray image segmentation because of blur of the X ray image and vagueness of its edge, which are inherent properties of X ray images. To this end, we develop a new model based on the neural network to detect objects in a given X ray image. The new model utilizes Mumford-Shah functional incorporating with a modified adaptive SOFM. Although Mumford-Shah model is an active contour model not based on the gradient of the image for finding edges in image, it has some limitation to accurately represent object images. To avoid this criticism, we utilize an adaptive self organizing feature map developed earlier by the authors.[1] It's learning rule is derived from Mumford-Shah energy function and the boundary of blurred and vague X ray image. The evolution of the neural network is shown to well segment and represent. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed method, segmentation of an industrial part is solved and the experimental results are discussed in detail.