An efficient iterative thresholding method for image segmentation.

We proposed an efficient iterative thresholding method for multi-phase image segmentation. The algorithm is based on minimizing piecewise constant Mumford–Shah functional in which the contour length (or perimeter) is approximated by a non-local multi-phase energy. The minimization problem is solved by an iterative method. Each iteration consists of computing simple convolutions followed by a thresholding step. The algorithm is easy to implement and has the optimal complexity O ( N log ⁡ N ) per iteration. We also show that the iterative algorithm has the total energy decaying property. We present some numerical results to show the efficiency of our method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]