Segmentation coding using edge detection and region merging

An algorithm that integrates edge detection and region merging is presented. The algorithm can be employed as a pre-processing operation for model based image coding schemes. The pixels of the same intensities in an image are firstly clustered into small regions, resulting an oversegmented image where the boundaries are mainly edges. The further region merging operations are conducted in a way that the parameters are set to produce segmented image suitable for transform coding. Computer simulations he show that this algorithm yields suitable segmentation for effective transform coding.