Active contour-based multiresolution transforms for the segmentation of fluorescence microscope images

In recent years, the focus in biological science has shifted to understanding complex systems at the cellular and molecular levels, a task greatly facilitated by fluorescence microscopy. Segmentation, a fundamental yet difficult problem, is often the first processing step following acquisition. We have previously demonstrated that a stochastic active contour based algorithm together with the concept of topology preservation (TPSTACS) successfully segments single cells from multicell images. In this paper we demonstrate that TPSTACS successfully segments images from other imaging modalities such as DIC microscopy, MRI and fMRI. While this method is a viable alternative to hand segmentation, it is not yet ready to be used for high-throughput applications due to its large run time. Thus, we highlight some of the benefits of combining TPSTACS with the multiresolution approach for the segmentation of fluorescence microscope images. Here we propose a multiscale active contour (MSAC) transformation framework for developing a family of modular algorithms for the segmentation of fluorescence microscope images in particular, and biomedical images in general. While this framework retains the flexibility and the high quality of the segmentation provided by active contour-based algorithms, it offers a boost in the efficiency as well as a framework to compute new features that further enhance the segmentation.