Strategy for shape-based image analysis

Traditional image segmentation methods typically divide an image into separate regions based on the grayscale characteristics of the image. For most real-world image-segmentation problems, however, these methods tend to produce imperfectly shaped regions that require some degree of shape modification to yield acceptable results. Choosing an appropriate sequence of operators and associated operator parameters, though, is a tedious procedure and requires much image-processing expertise. We describe a strategy for easily selecting shape-based operations. Shape information on regions in an image is provided by the user in the form of easily-specified cues. The user is not required to be an image-processing expert to apply the strategy - he need only be able to specify the desired shape properties of the regions in the image.