Monte Carlo cluster refinement for noise robust image segmentation
This paper explores a stochastic approach to refining clustering results for data with spatial-feature context such as images under the presence of noise. We formulate the clustering problem as a maximum a posteriori (MAP) problem, and refine clustering results using importance-weighted Monte Carlo posterior estimates based on between-neighborhood error statistics to account for local spatial-feature context within a global framework. This cluster refinement approach is non-iterative and can be integrated with existing clustering methods to achieve improved clustering performance for image segmentation under high noise scenarios. Experiments on synthetic gray-level images, real-world natural images, and real-world satellite synthetic aperture radar imagery illustrate the proposed methods potential for improving clustering performance of existing clustering algorithms for image segmentation under high noise situations.
monte carlo clustering noise robust image segmentation stochastic local spatial-feature context maximum a posterior