Image thresholding segmentation based on a novel beta differential evolution approach

Image segmentation is the process of partitioning a digital image into multiple regions that have some relevant semantic content. In this context, histogram thresholding is one of the most important techniques for performing image segmentation. This paper proposes a beta differential evolution (BDE) algorithm for determining the n - 1 optimal n-level threshold on a given image using Otsu criterion. The efficacy of BDE approach is illustrated by some results when applied to two case studies of image segmentation. Compared with a fractional-order Darwinian particle swarm optimization (PSO), the proposed BDE approach performs better, or at least comparably, in terms of the quality of the final solutions and mean convergence in the evaluated case studies. (C) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.