Multi-level image thresholding is the most direct and effective method for image segmentation, which is a key step for image analysis and computer vision, however, as the number of threshold values increases, exhaustive search does not work efficiently and effectively and evolutionary algorithms often fall into a local optimal solution. In the paper, a meta-heuristics algorithm based on the breeding mechanism of Chinese hybrid rice is proposed to seek the optimal multi-level thresholds for image segmentation and Renyi’s entropy is utilized as the fitness function. Experiments have been run on four scanning electron microscope images of cement and four standard images, moreover, it is compared with other six classical and novel evolutionary algorithms: genetic algorithm, particle swarm optimization algorithm, differential evolution algorithm, ant lion optimization algorithm, whale optimization algorithm, and salp swarm algorithm. Meanwhile, some indicators, including the average fitness values, standard deviation, peak signal to noise ratio, and structural similarity index are used as evaluation criteria in the experiments. The experimental results show that the proposed method prevails over the other algorithms involved in the paper on most indicators and it can segment cement scanning electron microscope image effectively.
Threshold segmentation has been widely used in recent years due to its simplicity and efficiency. The method of segmenting images by the two-dimensional maximum entropy is a species of the useful technique of threshold segmentation. However, the efficiency and stability of this technique are still not ideal and the traditional search algorithm cannot meet the needs of engineering problems. To mitigate the above problem, swarm intelligent optimization algorithms have been employed in this field for searching the optimal threshold vector. An effective technique of lightning attachment procedure optimization (LAPO) algorithm based on a two-dimensional maximum entropy criterion is offered in this paper, and besides, a chaotic strategy is embedded into LAPO to develop a new algorithm named CLAPO. In order to confirm the benefits of the method proposed in this paper, the other seven kinds of competitive algorithms, such as Ant–lion Optimizer (ALO) and Grasshopper Optimization Algorithm (GOA), are compared. Experiments are conducted on four different kinds of images and the simulation results are presented in several indexes (such as computational time, maximum fitness, average fitness, variance of fitness and other indexes) at different threshold levels for each test image. By scrutinizing the results of the experiment, the superiority of the introduced method is demonstrated, which can meet the needs of image segmentation excellently.
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