A Hybrid Segmentation Approach of Brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging Using Region-Based Active Contour with a Similarity Factor and Multi-Population Genetic Algorithm

The performance of medical image segmentation is generally affected by the parameters of the adopted method and noise. To overcome these issues we introduce in this paper a novel segmentation approach of brain MRI using a region based-active contour model and evolutionary algorithm and without performing any pre-processing step. Our main objective is to accurately extract edges, resolve the intensity inhomogeneity problem and overcome manifestations of noise. Chan and Vese model was adopted by introducing a local similarity factor based on Bilateral filter principle (LSFB). The adjustment of our functional energy parameters was achieved using a multi-population genetic algorithm (MPGA) which can display better search performance than serial single population models, in terms of the quality of the solution found, effort and processing time. We selected Brain MRI from Oasis and Brainweb data base with different noise type. The initialization of the active contour was totally random. A comparison of segmentation results with Chan and Vese model and active contour model with a locally computed signed pressure force (SPF) of Akram and his team reveals a clear efficiency of our proposed approach.