An efficient conditional random field approach for automatic and interactive neuron segmentation

We present a new graphical-model-based method for automatic and interactive segmentation of neuron structures from electron microscopy (EM) images. For automated reconstruction, our learning based model selects a collection of nodes from a hierarchical merging tree as the proposed segmentation. More specifically, this is achieved by training a conditional random field (CRF) whose underlying graph is the watershed merging tree. The maximum a posteriori (MAP) prediction of the CRF is the output segmentation. Our results are comparable to the results of state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, both the inference and the training are very efficient as the graph is tree-structured.The problem of neuron segmentation requires extremely high segmentation quality. Therefore, proofreading, namely, interactively correcting mistakes of the automatic method, is a necessary module in the pipeline. Based on our efficient tree-structured inference algorithm, we develop an interactive segmentation framework which only selects locations where the model is uncertain for a user to proofread. The uncertainty is measured by the marginals of the graphical model. Only giving a limited number of choices makes the user interaction very efficient. Based on user corrections, our framework modifies the merging tree and thus improves the segmentation globally.