Patent ID: 7660463
Filing Date: 2010-02-09
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: presenting an image including an object on a display of a computer; receiving user input for defining a selected region of the image enclosing pixels of the image corresponding to the object and one or more other pixels of the image; segmenting the image into an initial foreground portion and an initial background portion based on the selected region, the initial foreground portion defined by pixels of the image interior to the selected region, the initial background portion defined by pixels of the image exterior to the selected region; determining foreground and background properties corresponding to the initial foreground and background portions, wherein the foreground and background properties are modeled using image features learned from the pixels of the image; updating the foreground and background properties based on the initial foreground and background portions; updating the initial foreground and background portions based on the updated foreground and background properties to estimate segmentation as a minimum of a segmentation function; automatically determining whether convergence to the minimum of the segmentation function has been achieved; when it is determined that convergence has not been achieved, automatically alternating between performing additional updating of the foreground and background properties and additional updating of the foreground and background portions until convergence to the minimum of the segmentation function has been achieved; and outputting at least one of the foreground and background portions to the display of the computer after convergence has been achieved.