Edge-based local adaptive thresholding system and methods for foreground detection

Abstract

Systems and methods for generating a locally adaptive threshold image for foreground detection performing operations including creating a saliency edge strength image or layer indicating edge or border pixels of the nuclei by performing tensor voting on pixels neighboring the initial edge pixels within an image region to refine true edges are featured. Further, for each of a plurality of regions or blocks of the image, an adaptive threshold image is determined by sampling a foreground pixel and a background pixel for each initial edge pixel or refined edge pixel, generating histograms for both background and foreground saliency (or gradient magnitude) modulated histograms, determining a threshold range for each block of the image, and interpolating the threshold at each pixel based on the threshold range at each block. Comparing the input image with the resulting locally adaptive threshold image enables extraction of significantly improved foreground.