<title>Color image segmentation</title>

Abstract

The most difficult stage of automated target recognition is segmentation. Current segmentation problems include faces and tactical targets; previous efforts to segment these objects have used intensity and motion cues. This paper develops a color preprocessing scheme to be used with the other segmentation techniques. A neural network is trained to identify the color of a desired object, eliminating all but that color from the scene. Gabor correlations and 2D wavelet transformations will be performed on stationary images; and 3D wavelet transforms on multispectral data will incorporate color and motion detection into the machine visual system. The paper will demonstrate that color and motion cues can enhance a computer segmentation system. Results from segmenting faces both from the AFIT data base and from video taped television are presented; results from tactical targets such as tanks and airplanes are also given. Color preprocessing is shown to greatly improve the segmentation in most cases.