Patent ID: 8180154

Claim:
A method of object detection in an image comprising a plurality of pixels by image segmentation comprising: dividing the image into a plurality of regions; assigning each pixel to one of the plurality of regions based on a characteristic; performing an energy reduction on the image based on a region reassignment of at least one pixel and a comparison based on regions to which pixels surrounding the at least one pixel are assigned, wherein reducing the energy of the image comprises: a) selecting a candidate pixel; b) determining a change in energy of the image comprising a difference in energy of the image based on a movement of the candidate pixel from a current location in a current region to a new location in a new region, wherein determining the change in energy comprises: i) determining a plurality of energy levels for the image, wherein each energy level is determined as if the candidate pixel has already been assigned to a different region, and wherein the energy level comprises a sum of a plurality of region energies, with each region energy comprising a weighted sum of the intensity of the region and a length of at least a portion of a perimeter of the region; and ii) identifying the new region as being one with a lowest energy level in the plurality of energy levels; and c) reassigning the candidate pixel to the new region if there is a decrease in energy of the image; and producing an output image based on the energy reduction.