This object is our ROT in this example, and is marked in red in Figure 1b For a population of images, the subimagc covered by ROI is a random variable. Assuming that, texture is homogeneous within the ROI and that the area of the ROI is sufficiently large,

one can compute a number, say N, of statistical parameters based on image points contained in the ROI. Depending on definition of these statistics, NU7026 concentration different properties of the ROI texture can be highlighted; these parameters are called texture features. In the example illustrated, the calculated parameters can be arranged to form a feature vector [p1, p2, ..., pN]. Such a vector is Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical a compact description of the image texture. Comparison of vectors computed for images measured for different patients indicates whether the texture covered by ROI represents normal or abnormal tissue. Figure 1. A cross-section of human skull (A), with the region of interest (ROI) marked in red (B). Feature vectors can be applied to the input of a device called a classifier. On the basis of its input, the classifier takes the decision as to which predefined Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical texture classes its input represents. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical Consider a population

of K images, each showing a different, instance of texture A. A feature vector is computed for each image, and applied to the input of the classifier. In an ideal case, “seeing” a vector drawn from texture of class A, the classifier responds with the information “class A” at its output. Similarly, for a population of K images, K feature vectors can be computed. Any of these could be applied to the input of the classifier. In an ideal case, the response of the classifier to a feature vector computed for texture class B is “class B.” (Sometimes Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical a classifier cannot make a correct decision; in such cases, it wrongly recognizes a texture class different, from the one represented at the input, or it is unable to make a choice between assumed texture classes.) The concept of textured image segmentation is illustrated in Figure 2 The Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical left and right halves of the image in Figure 2a have different textures. In

the process of image segmentation, the two regions are automatically identified and marked in different colors, eg, orange and blue in Figure 2b. (Some parts of the image are wrongly recognized as regions of yet other texture types, though.) There are two main techniques of image segmentation: supervised, where texture classes are known in advance; and unsupervised, where they arc unknown, and so the segmenting device has to identify not. only the texture classes, 3-mercaptopyruvate sulfurtransferase but. also their number. There exist, a variety of different, texture segmentation methods, such as region growing, maximum likelihood, split-and-merge algorithms, Bayesian classification, probabilistic relaxation, clustering, and neural networks.2 All of these are based on feature extraction, which is the initial step and is necessary to describe (measure and analyze) the texture properties. Figure 2. Textured image segmentation.