Segmentation of 2D and 3D images through a hierarchical clustering based on region modelling

This paper presents an unsupervised segmentation method applicable to both 2D and 3D images. The segmentation is achieved by a bottom-up hierarchical analysis to progressively agglomerate pixels/voxels in the image into non-overlapped homogeneous regions characterised by a linear signal model. A hierarchy of adjacency graphs is used to describe agglomeration results from the hierarchical analysis, and is constructed by successively performing a clustering operation which produces an optimal classification by merging each region with its nearest neighbours determined under the framework of statistical inference. The top level of the hierarchy then describes the segmentation result.