Enhanced Image Segmentation: Merging Fuzzy K-Means and Fuzzy C-Means Clustering Algorithms for Medical Applications

Abstract

Separating an image into regions according to some criterion is called image segmentation. This paper presents an algorithm that combines the fuzzy k-means (FKM) and fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering strategies. The proposed algorithm combines the FKM and the FCM algorithms mathematical features, which is referred to as (CFKCM). The FKM and FCM clustering algorithms are adopted to compare the performance and hence evaluate the proposed clustering algorithm. Tests are conducted, and performance parameters are calculated for validation. The comparison and assessment analysis are based on metrics related to the image clustering process, such as the Segmentation Accuracy (SA), Clustering Fitness (CF), and cluster Validity function (V pc and V pe ). A dataset of MR images is used by this research for the application, test, and evaluation of the image clustering. The results for clustering backbone MRI images show that CFKCM algorithm is featured by being more effective, and comparatively independent of the noise, where it can process the "clean" images and noisy images without knowing the type of the noise, which is the most difficult task in image segmentation.