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In the context of digital image processing and analysis, the Binary Partition Tree (BPT) is a classical data-structure for the hierarchical modelling of images at different scales. BPTs belong both to the families of graph-based models and morphological hierarchies. They constitute an efficient way to define sets of nested partitions of image support, that further provide knowledge-guided reduced research spaces for optimization-based segmentation procedures. Basically, a BPT is built in a mono-feature way, i.e., for one given image, and one given metric, by merging pairs of connected image regions that are similar in the induced feature space. We propose in this work a generalization of the BPT construction framework, allowing to embed multiple features. The cornerstone of our approach relies on a collaborative strategy enabling to establish a consensus between different metrics, thus allowing to obtain a unified hierarchical segmentation space. In particular, this provides alternatives to the complex issue of arbitrary metric construction from several – possibly non-comparable – features. To reach that goal, we first revisit the BPT construction algorithm to describe it in a fully graph-based formalism. Then, we present the structural and algorithmic evolutions and impacts when embedding multiple features in BPT construction. We also discuss different ways to tackle the induced memory and time complexity issues raised by this generalized framework. Final experiments illustrate how this multi-feature framework can be used to build BPTs from multiple metrics computed through the (potentially multiple) image content(s), in particular in the context of remote sensing.

Interpretation of image contents is very important objective in image processing and computer vision. Wherefore, it has received much attention of researchers. An image contains a lot of information which can be studied such as color, shapes, edges, corners, size, and orientation. Moreover, contours include the most important structures in the image. In order to extract features contour of an object, we must detect the edges of that object. Edge detection results, remains a key point and very important step in wide range of applications such as: image restoration, enhancement, steganography, watermarking, image retrieval, recognition, compression, and etc. An efficient boundary detection method should create a contour image containing edges at their correct locations with a minimum of misclassified pixels. However, the performance evaluationof the edge detection results is still a challenging problem. The digital images are sometimes modify by a legal or illegal data in order to send special or secret data. These changes modify slight coefficient values of the image. In order to be less visible, most of the steganography methods modify the pixel values in the edge/texture image areas. Therefore, it is important to detect the presence of hidden data in digital images. This thesis is divided mainly into two main parts. The first part, deals with filtering edge detection, contours evaluation and corners detection methods. More deeply, there are five contributions are presented in this part: first, proposed a new normalized supervised edge map quality measure. The strategy to normalize the evaluation enables to consider a score close to 0 as a good edge map, whereas a score 1 translates a poor segmentation. Second, proposed a new technique to evaluate filtering edge detection methods involving the minimum score of the considerate measures. Moreover, build a new ground truth edge map labelled in semi-automatic way in real images. Third, proposed a new measure takes into account the distances of false positive points to evaluate an edge detector in an objective way. Finally, proposed a new approach for corner detection based on the combination of directional derivative and homogeneity kernels. The proposed approach remains more stable and robust to noise than ten famous corner detection methods. The second part, deals with color image steganalysis, based on a machine learning classification. More deeply, there are three contributionsare presented in this part: first, proposed a new color image steganalysis method based on extract color features from correlations between the gradients of red, green and blue channels. Since these features give the cosine of angles between gradients. Second, proposed a new color steganalysis method based on geometric measures obtained by the sine and cosine of gradient angles between all the color channels. Finally, proposed a new approach for color image steganalysisbased on steerable Gaussian filters Bank.All the three proposed methods in this part, provide interesting and promising results by outperforming the state-of-art color image steganalysis.; L’interprétation du contenu de l’image est un objectif très important dans le traitement de l’image et la vision par ordinateur. Par conséquent, plusieurs chercheurs y sont intéressés. Une image contient des informations multiples qui peuvent être étudiés, telles que la couleur, les formes, les arêtes, les angles, la taille et l’orientation. En outre, les contours contiennent les structures les plus importantes de l’image. Afin d’extraire les caractéristiques du contour d’un objet, nous devons détecter les bords de cet objet. La détection de bords est un point clé dans plusieurs applications, telles que :la restauration, l’amélioration de l’image, la stéganographie, le filigrane, la récupération, la reconnaissance et la compression de l’image, etc. Toutefois, l’évaluation de la performance de la méthode de détection de bords reste un grand défi. Les images numériques sont parfois modifiées par une procédure légale ou illégale afin d’envoyer des données secrètes ou spéciales. Afin d’être moins visibles, la plupart des méthodes stéganographiques modifient les valeurs de pixels dans les bords/textures de parties de l’image. Par conséquent, il est important de détecter la présence de données cachées dans les images numériques. Cette thèse est divisée principalement en deux parties.La première partie discute l’évaluation des méthodes de détection des bords du filtrage, des contours et des angles. En effet, cinq contributions sont présentées dans cette partie : d’abord, nous avons proposé un nouveau plan de surveillance normalisée de mesure de la qualité. En second lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle technique pour évaluer les méthodes de détection des bords de filtrage impliquant le score minimal des mesures considérées. En plus, nous avons construit une nouvelle vérité terrain de la carte de bords étiquetée d’une manière semi-automatique pour des images réelles.En troisième lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle mesure prenant en compte les distances de faux points positifs pour évaluer un détecteur de bords d’une manière objective. Enfin, nous avons proposé une nouvelle approche de détection de bords qui combine la dérivée directionnelle et l’homogénéité des grains. Notre approche proposée est plus stable et robuste au bruit que dix autres méthodes célèbres de détection. La seconde partie discute la stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur l’apprentissage automatique (machine learning). En effet, trois contributions sont présentées dans cette partie : d’abord, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur l’extraction de caractéristiques de couleurs à partir de corrélations entre les gradients de canaux rouge, vert et bleu. En fait, ces caractéristiques donnent le cosinus des angles entre les gradients. En second lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur des mesures géométriques obtenues par le sinus et le cosinus des angles de gradients entre tous les canaux de couleurs. Enfin, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur une banque de filtres gaussiens orientables. Toutes les trois méthodes proposées présentent des résultats intéressants et prometteur en devançant l’état de l’art de la stéganalyse en couleurs.

International audience; In digital images, edges characterize object boundaries, then their detection remains a crucial stage in numerous applications. To achieve this task, many edge detectors have been designed, producing different results, with different qualities. Evaluating the response obtained by these detectors has become a crucial task. In this paper, several referenced-based boundary detection evaluations are detailed, pointing their advantages and disadvantages through concrete examples of edge images. Then, a new supervised edge map quality measure is proposed, comparing a ground truth contour image, the candidate contour image and their associated spacial nearness. Compared to other boundary detection assessments, this new method has the advantage to be normalized and remains a more reliable edge map quality measure.

The binary partition tree (BPT) is a hierarchical data-structure that models the content of an image in a multiscale way. In particular, a cut of the BPT of an image provides a segmentation, as a partition of the image support. Actually, building a BPT allows for dramatically reducing the search space for segmentation purposes, based on intrinsic (image signal) and extrinsic (construction metric) information. A large literature has been devoted to the construction on such metrics, and the associated choice of criteria (spectral, spatial , geometric, etc.) for building relevant BPTs, in particular in the challenging context of remote sensing. But, surprisingly, there exists few works dedicated to evaluate the quality of BPTs, i.e. their ability to further provide a satisfactory segmentation. In this paper , we propose a framework for BPT quality evaluation, in a supervised paradigm. Indeed, we assume that ground-truth segments are provided by an expert, possibly with a semantic labelling and a given uncertainty. Then, we describe local evaluation metrics, BPT nodes / ground-truth segments fitting strategies, and global quality score computation considering semantic information, leading to a complete evaluation framework. This framework is illustrated in the context of BPT segmentation of multispectral satellite images.

Interpretation of image contents is very important objective in image processing and computer vision. Wherefore, it has received much attention of researchers. An image contains a lot of information which can be studied such as color, shapes, edges, corners, size, and orientation. Moreover, contours include the most important structures in the image. In order to extract features contour of an object, we must detect the edges of that object. Edge detection results, remains a key point and very important step in wide range of applications such as: image restoration, enhancement, steganography, watermarking, image retrieval, recognition, compression, and etc. An efficient boundary detection method should create a contour image containing edges at their correct locations with a minimum of misclassified pixels. However, the performance evaluationof the edge detection results is still a challenging problem. The digital images are sometimes modify by a legal or illegal data in order to send special or secret data. These changes modify slight coefficient values of the image. In order to be less visible, most of the steganography methods modify the pixel values in the edge/texture image areas. Therefore, it is important to detect the presence of hidden data in digital images. This thesis is divided mainly into two main parts. The first part, deals with filtering edge detection, contours evaluation and corners detection methods. More deeply, there are five contributions are presented in this part: first, proposed a new normalized supervised edge map quality measure. The strategy to normalize the evaluation enables to consider a score close to 0 as a good edge map, whereas a score 1 translates a poor segmentation. Second, proposed a new technique to evaluate filtering edge detection methods involving the minimum score of the considerate measures. Moreover, build a new ground truth edge map labelled in semi-automatic way in real images. Third, proposed a new measure takes into account the distances of false positive points to evaluate an edge detector in an objective way. Finally, proposed a new approach for corner detection based on the combination of directional derivative and homogeneity kernels. The proposed approach remains more stable and robust to noise than ten famous corner detection methods. The second part, deals with color image steganalysis, based on a machine learning classification. More deeply, there are three contributionsare presented in this part: first, proposed a new color image steganalysis method based on extract color features from correlations between the gradients of red, green and blue channels. Since these features give the cosine of angles between gradients. Second, proposed a new color steganalysis method based on geometric measures obtained by the sine and cosine of gradient angles between all the color channels. Finally, proposed a new approach for color image steganalysisbased on steerable Gaussian filters Bank.All the three proposed methods in this part, provide interesting and promising results by outperforming the state-of-art color image steganalysis., L’interprétation du contenu de l’image est un objectif très important dans le traitement de l’image et la vision par ordinateur. Par conséquent, plusieurs chercheurs y sont intéressés. Une image contient des informations multiples qui peuvent être étudiés, telles que la couleur, les formes, les arêtes, les angles, la taille et l’orientation. En outre, les contours contiennent les structures les plus importantes de l’image. Afin d’extraire les caractéristiques du contour d’un objet, nous devons détecter les bords de cet objet. La détection de bords est un point clé dans plusieurs applications, telles que :la restauration, l’amélioration de l’image, la stéganographie, le filigrane, la récupération, la reconnaissance et la compression de l’image, etc. Toutefois, l’évaluation de la performance de la méthode de détection de bords reste un grand défi. Les images numériques sont parfois modifiées par une procédure légale ou illégale afin d’envoyer des données secrètes ou spéciales. Afin d’être moins visibles, la plupart des méthodes stéganographiques modifient les valeurs de pixels dans les bords/textures de parties de l’image. Par conséquent, il est important de détecter la présence de données cachées dans les images numériques. Cette thèse est divisée principalement en deux parties.La première partie discute l’évaluation des méthodes de détection des bords du filtrage, des contours et des angles. En effet, cinq contributions sont présentées dans cette partie : d’abord, nous avons proposé un nouveau plan de surveillance normalisée de mesure de la qualité. En second lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle technique pour évaluer les méthodes de détection des bords de filtrage impliquant le score minimal des mesures considérées. En plus, nous avons construit une nouvelle vérité terrain de la carte de bords étiquetée d’une manière semi-automatique pour des images réelles.En troisième lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle mesure prenant en compte les distances de faux points positifs pour évaluer un détecteur de bords d’une manière objective. Enfin, nous avons proposé une nouvelle approche de détection de bords qui combine la dérivée directionnelle et l’homogénéité des grains. Notre approche proposée est plus stable et robuste au bruit que dix autres méthodes célèbres de détection. La seconde partie discute la stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur l’apprentissage automatique (machine learning). En effet, trois contributions sont présentées dans cette partie : d’abord, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur l’extraction de caractéristiques de couleurs à partir de corrélations entre les gradients de canaux rouge, vert et bleu. En fait, ces caractéristiques donnent le cosinus des angles entre les gradients. En second lieu, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur des mesures géométriques obtenues par le sinus et le cosinus des angles de gradients entre tous les canaux de couleurs. Enfin, nous avons proposé une nouvelle méthode de stéganalyse de l’image en couleurs, basée sur une banque de filtres gaussiens orientables. Toutes les trois méthodes proposées présentent des résultats intéressants et prometteur en devançant l’état de l’art de la stéganalyse en couleurs.

International audience; The binary partition tree (BPT) is a hierarchical data-structure that models the content of an image in a multiscale way. In particular, a cut of the BPT of an image provides a segmentation, as a partition of the image support. Actually, building a BPT allows for dramatically reducing the search space for segmentation purposes, based on intrinsic (image signal) and extrinsic (construction metric) information. A large literature has been devoted to the construction on such metrics, and the associated choice of criteria (spectral, spatial , geometric, etc.) for building relevant BPTs, in particular in the challenging context of remote sensing. But, surprisingly, there exists few works dedicated to evaluate the quality of BPTs, i.e. their ability to further provide a satisfactory segmentation. In this paper , we propose a framework for BPT quality evaluation, in a supervised paradigm. Indeed, we assume that ground-truth segments are provided by an expert, possibly with a semantic labelling and a given uncertainty. Then, we describe local evaluation metrics, BPT nodes / ground-truth segments fitting strategies, and global quality score computation considering semantic information, leading to a complete evaluation framework. This framework is illustrated in the context of BPT segmentation of multispectral satellite images.

International audience; Edge detection remains a crucial stage in numerous image processing applications. Thus, an edge detection technique needs to be assessed before use it in a computer vision task. As dissimilarity evaluations depend strongly of a ground truth edge map, an inaccurate datum in terms of localization could advantage inaccurate precise edge detectors or/and favor inappropriate a dissimilarity evaluation measure. Hence, in this work, we demonstrate how to label these ground truth data in a semi-automatic way. Moreover, several referenced-based boundary detection evaluations are detailed and applied toward an objective assessment. Thus, each measure is compared by varying the threshold of the thin edges. Indeed, theoretically, the minimum score of the measure corresponds to the best edge map, compared to the ground truth. Finally, experiments on many images using six edge detectors show that the new ground truth database allows an objective comparison of numerous dissimilarity measures

This paper tackles the supervised evaluation of image segmentation and object proposal algorithms. It surveys, structures, and deduplicates the measures used to compare both segmentation results and object proposals with a ground truth database; and proposes a new measure: the precision-recall for objects and parts. To compare the quality of these measures, eight state-of-the-art object proposal techniques are analyzed and two quantitative meta-measures involving nine state of the art segmentation methods are presented. The meta-measures consist in assuming some plausible hypotheses about the results and assessing how well each measure reflects these hypotheses. As a conclusion of the performed experiments, this paper proposes the tandem of precision-recall curves for boundaries and for objects-and-parts as the tool of choice for the supervised evaluation of image segmentation. We make the datasets and code of all the measures publicly available.

International audience; To face fire it is crucial to understand its behaviour in order to maximize fighting means. To achieve this task, the development of a metrological tool is necessary for estimating both geometrical and physical parameters involved in forest fire modelling. A key parameter is to estimate fire positions accurately. In this paper an image processing tool especially dedicated to an accurate extraction of fire from an image is presented. In this work, the clustering on several colour spaces is investigated and it appears that the blue chrominance Cb from the YCbCr colour space is the most appropriate. As a consequence, a new segmentation algorithm dedicated to forest fire applications has been built using first an optimized k-means clustering in the Cb-channel and then some properties of fire pixels in the RGB colour space. Next, the performance of the proposed method is evaluated using three supervised evaluation criteria and then compared to other existing segmentation algorithms in the literature. Finally a conclusion is drawn, assessing the good behaviour of the developed algorithm.