title: Segmentation of White Blood Cells through Nucleus Mark Watershed Operations and Mean Shift Clustering.
abstract: This paper presents a novel method for segmentation of white blood cells (WBCs) in peripheral blood and bone marrow images under different lights through mean shift clustering, color space conversion and nucleus mark watershed operation (NMWO). The proposed method focuses on obtaining seed points. First, color space transformation and image enhancement techniques are used to obtain nucleus groups as inside seeds. Second, mean shift clustering, selection of the C channel component in the CMYK model, and illumination intensity adjustment are employed to acquire WBCs as outside seeds. Third, the seeds and NMWO are employed to precisely determine WBCs and solve the cell adhesion problem. Morphological operations are further used to improve segmentation accuracy. Experimental results demonstrate that the algorithm exhibits higher segmentation accuracy and robustness compared with traditional methods.
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China. liuzhi@sdu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Zhi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China. youxiang7799@126.com.
authors.forename: Jing
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.affiliation: Department of Nephropathy, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250012, China. xiaoyanxiao2007@163.com.
authors.forename: Xiaoyan
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Xiao
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China. lz505@163.com.
authors.forename: Hui
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.affiliation: Department of Oncology, the Second Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250033, China. sdulixiaomei@163.com.
authors.forename: Xiaomei
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: School of Information Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250100, China. changjun@sdu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Chang
authors.affiliation: Department of Hematology, the Second Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan 250033, China. zhengzhengwei@hotmail.com.
authors.forename: Chengyun
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zheng
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells / Q000166:cytology; D002467:Cell Nucleus; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D008853:Microscopy
keywords: C channel component; different lights; mean shift clustering; morphological operations; nucleus mark watershed operation; peripheral blood and bone marrow; segment; white blood cells