ORACM: Online region-based active contour model

• A new online region-based active contour model (ORACM) is presented.
• The computational cost of ORACM is 3.75 times less than the traditional methods.
• ORACM suitable for real-time image segmentation applications.

A new online region-based active contour model (ORACM) is proposed in this paper. The classical geodesic active contour (GAC) model has only local segmentation property, although the Chan–Vese (C–V) model possesses global. An up-to-date active contour model (ACM with SBGFRLS) proposed in Zhang, Zhang, Song, and Zhou (2010) both has the properties of global/local segmentation and incorporates the GAC and the C–V models to raise active contours’ performance on image segmentation. However it has two major disadvantages. First, it deforms the active contour model just using the gradient of current level set iteratively and so works too slowly. Second, it needs a parameter α which plays major impact on the results and to be tuned according to input images. The proposed model ORACM eliminates these two disadvantages by using a new binary level set formula and a new regularization operation such as morphological opening and closing. Without changing segmentation accuracy, ORACM requires no parameter and less time over the traditional ACMs. Experiments on synthetic and real images demonstrate that the computational cost of ORACM with the morphological operations is 3.75 times less than the traditional ACMs on average.