Watershed Algorithm for Medical Image Segmentation Based on Morphology and Total Variation Model

Abstract

The traditional watershed algorithm has the limitation of false mark in medical image segmentation, which causes over-segmentation and images to be contaminated by noise possibly during acquisition. In this study, we proposed an improved watershed segmentation algorithm based on morphological processing and total variation model (TV) for medical image segmentation. First of all, morphological gradient preprocessing is performed on MRI images of brain lesions. Secondly, the gradient images are denoised by the all-variational model. While retaining the edge information of MRI images of brain lesions, the image noise is reduced. And then, the internal and external markers are obtained by forced minimum technique, and the gradient amplitude images are corrected by using these markers. Finally, the modified gradient image is subjected to watershed transformation. The experiment of segmentation and simulation of brain lesion MRI image is carried out on MATLAB. And the segmentation results are compared with other watershed algrothims. The experimental results demonstrate that our method obtains the least number of regions, which can extract MRI images of brain lesions effectively. In addition, this method can inhibit over-segmentation, improving the segmentation results of lesions in MRI images of brain lesions.