Seeded segmentation based on object homogeneity

Seeded segmentation methods attempt to solve the segmentation problem in the presence of prior knowledge in the form of a partial segmentation, where a small subset of the image elements (seed-points) have been assigned correct segmentation labels. Common for most of the leading methods in this area is that they seek to find a segmentation where the boundaries of the segmented regions coincide with sharp edges in the image. Here, we instead propose a method for seeded segmentation that seeks to divide the image into areas of homogeneous pixel values. The method is based on the computation of minimal cost paths in a discrete representation of the image, using a novel path-cost function. The utility of the proposed method is demonstrated in a case study on segmentation of white matter hyperintensitities in MR images of the human brain.