• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.610-616
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• 2012

In this paper, we present a method to detect an object such as ship, rock and buoy from sea IR image for the safety navigation. To this end, we do the image smoothing first and the apply watershed algorithm to segment image into subregions. Since watershed algorithm almost always produces over-segmented regions, it requires posterior merging process to get meaningful segmented regions. We propose an efficient merger algorithm that requires only two times of direct access to the pixels regardless of the number of regions. Also by analyzing IR image obtained from sea environments, we could find out that most horizontal edge come out from object regions. For the given input IR image we extract horizontal edge and eliminate isolated edges produced from background and noises by adopting morphological operator. Among the segmented regions, the regions that have horizontal edges are extracted as final results. Experimental results show the adequacy of the proposed method.

• Journal of Forest and Environmental Science
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.233-242
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• 2014

Estimating above-ground biomass is important in establishing an applicable methodology of Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) System for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation-Plus (REDD+). We developed an estimation model of diameter at breast height (DBH) from IKONOS-2 image that led to above-ground biomass estimation (AGB). The IKONOS image was preprocessed with dark object subtraction and topographic effect correction prior to watershed segmentation for tree crown delineation. Compared to the field observation, the overall segmentation accuracy was 64%. Crown detection percent had a strong negative correlation to tree density. In addition, satellite-based crown area had the highest correlation with the field measured DBH. We then developed the DBH allometric model that explained 74% of the data variance. In average, the estimated DBH was very similar to the measured DBH as well as for AGB. Overall, this method can potentially be applied to estimate AGB over a relatively large and remote tropical forest in Northern Borneo.

• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
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• v.53 no.7
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• pp.545-555
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• 2020

A feasibility modeling for potential hydroelectric dam site selection was suggested using 1 sec ASTGTM (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model) and Terra/Aqua MODIS (Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer) derived land use (MCD12Q1) data. The modeling includes DEM pre-processing of peak, sink, and flat, river network generation, watershed delineation and segmentation, terrain analysis of stream cross section and reservoir storage, and estimation of submerged area for compensation. The modeling algorithms were developed using Python and as an open source GIS. When a user-defined stream point is selected, the model evaluates potential hydroelectric head, reservoir surface area and storage capacity curve, watershed time of concentration from DEM, and compensation area from land use data. The model was tested for 4 locations of already constructed Buhang, BohyunMountain, Sungdeok, and Yeongju dams. The modeling results obtained maximum possible heads of 37.0, 67.0, 73.0, 42.0 m, surface areas of 1.81, 2.4, 2.8, 8.8 ㎢, storages of 35.9, 68.0, 91.3, 168.3×10⁶ ㎥ respectively. BohyunMountain and Sungdeok show validity but in case of Buhang and Yeongju dams have maximum head errors. These errors came from the stream generation error due to ASTGTM. So, wrong dam watershed boundary limit the head. This study showed a possibility to estimate potential hydroelectric dam sites before field investigation especially for overseas project.

• Journal of the Korea Concrete Institute
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.513-522
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• 2008

The fiber dispersion performance in fiber-reinforced cementitious composites is a crucial factor with respect to achieving desired mechanical performance. However, evaluation of the fiber dispersion performance in the composite PVA-ECC (Polyvinyl alcohol-Engineered Cementitious Composite) is extremely challenging because of the low contrast of PVA fibers with the cement-based matrix. In the present work, an enhanced fiber detection technique is developed and demonstrated. Using a fluorescence technique on the PVA-ECC, PVA fibers are observed as green dots in the cross-section of the composite. After capturing the fluorescence image with a Charged Couple Device (CCD) camera through a microscope. The fibers are more accurately detected by employing a series of process based on a categorization, watershed segmentation, and morphological reconstruction.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2000.04b
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• pp.511-513
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• 2000

PaP Smear 테스트는 자궁 경부암 진단에 가장 효율적인 방법으로 알려져 있다. 그러나 이 방법은 높은 위 음성률(false negative error, 15~50%)을 나타내고 있다. 이런 큰 오류율은 주로 다량의 세포 검사에 기인하여, 자동화 시스템의 개발이 절실히 요구되고 있다. 본 논문은 자궁 경부암의 특징인 군집을 이루는 암세포를 인식할 수 있는 시스템을 제안한다. 시스템은 두 부분으로 나누어진다. 첫 단계에서는 저 배율(100배)에서 간단한 영상처리와 최소 근접 트리(Minimum Spanning Tree)를 통해 군집을 이루는 세포를 찾는다. 두 번째 단계서는 고 배율(400배)로 확대하여 군집 세포들로부터 여러 가지 특징을 추출한 후 KNN(k-Neighbor) 방법을 통해 인식하는 단계이다. 50개의 영상 (640X 480, RGB True Color 25 개의 100배 영상 , 25개의 400배 영상)이 실험에 사용되었다. 한 영상을 처리하는데 약 3초 (2.984초) 소요되었으며, 이는 region growing(20초)나 split and merge(58초) 방법 보다 덜 소요되었다. 100배 영상에서 정상과 비정상의 두 그룹으로 나누었을 경우에는 96%의 높은 인식율을 나타내었으나 비정상을 다시 5개의 그룹으로 나누었을 때는 45%로 나타내었다. 이는 영역 추출(segmentation) 단계에서 오류와 트레이닝 데이터의 비정확성에 기인한다. 400배 영상에서는 각각 92%와 30%로 나타내었다. 이는 영역추출 단계에서 사용한 Watershed 방법의 오류로 기인한 것으로 본다.

• Journal of the Optical Society of Korea
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• v.16 no.2
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• pp.115-120
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• 2012

In this paper, we present a method to automatically quantify the three-dimensional (3D) volume of red blood cells (RBCs) using off-axis digital holographic microscopy. The RBCs digital holograms are recorded via a CCD camera using an off-axis interferometry setup. The RBCs' phase image is reconstructed from the recorded off-axis digital hologram by a computational reconstruction algorithm. The watershed segmentation algorithm is applied to the reconstructed phase image to remove background parts and obtain clear targets in the phase image with many single RBCs. After segmenting the reconstructed RBCs' phase image, all single RBCs are extracted, and the 3D volume of each single RBC is then measured with the surface area and the phase values of the corresponding RBC. In order to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method to automatically calculate the 3D volume of RBC, two typical shapes of RBCs, i.e., stomatocyte/discocyte, are tested via experiments. Statistical distributions of 3D volume for each class of RBC are generated by using our algorithm. Statistical hypothesis testing is conducted to investigate the difference between the statistical distributions for the two typical shapes of RBCs. Our experimental results illustrate that our study opens the possibility of automated quantitative analysis of 3D volume in various types of RBCs.

• Korean Journal of Optics and Photonics
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.16-22
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• 2009

We propose a method to convert a two-dimensional movie to a three-dimensional movie using normalized cut and optical flow. In this paper, we segment an image of a two-dimensional movie to objects first, and then estimate the depth of each object. Normalized cut is one of the image segmentation algorithms. For improving speed and accuracy of normalized cut, we used a watershed algorithm and a weight function using optical flow. We estimate the depth of objects which are segmented by improved normalized cut using optical flow. Ordinal depth is estimated by the change of the segmented object label in an occluded region which is the difference of absolute values of optical flow. For compensating ordinal depth, we generate the relational depth which is the absolute value of optical flow as motion parallax. A final depth map is determined by multiplying ordinal depth by relational depth, then dividing by average optical flow. In this research, we propose the two-dimensional/three-dimensional movie conversion method which is applicable to all three-dimensional display devices and all two-dimensional movie formats. We present experimental results using sample two-dimensional movies.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.16 no.1
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• pp.39-46
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• 2015

This paper presents an automatic method to detect and count the cells from microorganism images based on mobile environments. Cell counting is an important process in the field of biological and pathological image analysis. In the past, cell counting is done manually, which is known as tedious and time consuming process. Moreover, the manual cell counting can lead inconsistent and imprecise results. Therefore, it is necessary to make an automatic method to detect and count cells from biological images to obtain accurate and consistent results. The proposed multi-step cell counting method automatically segments the cells from the image of cultivated microorganism and labels the cells by utilizing topological analysis of the segmented cells. To improve the accuracy of the cell counting, we adopt watershed algorithm in separating agglomerated cells from each other and morphological operation in enhancing the individual cell object from the image. The system is developed by considering the availability in mobile environments. Therefore, the cell images can be obtained by a mobile phone and the processed statistical data of microorganism can be delivered by mobile devices in ubiquitous smart space. From the experiments, by comparing the results between manual and the proposed automatic cell counting we can prove the efficiency of the developed system.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartB
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• v.15B no.6
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• pp.561-574
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• 2008

The spot detection phase of the 2-DE image analysis program segments a gel image into spot regions by an image segmentation algorithm and fits the spot regions to a spot shape model and quantifies the spot informations for the next phases. Currently the watershed algorithm is generally used as the segmentation algorithm and there are the Gaussian model and the diffusion model for the shape model. The diffusion model is closer to real spot shapes than the Gaussian model however spots have very various shapes and especially an asymmetric formation in x-coordinate and y-coordinate. The reason for asymmetric formation of spots is known that a protein could not be diffused completely because the 2-DE could not be processed under the ideal environment usually. Accordingly we propose an asymmetric diffusion model in this paper. The asymmetric diffusion model assumes that a protein spot is diffused from a disc at initial time of diffusing process, but is diffused asymmetrically for x-axis and y-axis respectively as time goes on. In experiments we processed spot matching for 19 gel images by using three models respectively and evaluated averages of SNR for comparing three models. As averages of SNR we got 14.22dB for the Gaussian model, 20.72dB for the diffusion model and 22.85dB for the asymmetric diffusion model. By experimental results we could confirm the asymmetric diffusion model is more efficient and more adequate for spot matching than the Gaussian model and the diffusion model.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.26 no.12A
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• pp.2109-2119
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• 2001

In this paper, a fast information extraction algorithm for object-based MPEG-4 application from MPEG-2 bit-steam is proposed. For object-based MPEG-4 conversion, we need to extract such information as object-image, shape-image, macro-block motion vector, and header information from MPEG-2 bit-stream. If we use the extracted information, fast conversion for object-based MPEG-4 is possible. The proposed object extraction algorithm has two important steps, namely the motion vectors extraction from MPEG-2 bit-stream and the watershed algorithm. The algorithm extracts objects using user\`s assistance in the intra frame and tracks then in the following inter frames. If we have an unsatisfactory result for a fast moving object, the user can intervene to correct the segmentation. The proposed algorithm consist of two steps, which are intra frame object extracts processing and inter frame tracking processing. Object extracting process is the step in which user extracts a semantic object directly by using the block classification and watersheds. Object tacking process is the step of the following the object in the subsequent frames. It is based on the boundary fitting method using motion vector, object-mask, and modified watersheds. Experimental results show that the proposed method can achieve a fast conversion from the MPEG-2 bit-stream to the object-based MPEG-4 input.