01458nas a2200121   4500008004100000020002200041245011700063210006900180260004600249300001400295520093900309856008801248       2011                        eng d  a978-3-642-23686-000aA Multi-Layer 'Gas of Circles' Markov Random Field Model for the Extraction of Overlapping Near-Circular Objects0 aMultiLayer Gas of Circles Markov Random Field Model for the Extr  aGhent, BelgiumbSpringer-VerlagcAug 2011  a171 - 1823 a<p>We propose a multi-layer binary Markov random field (MRF) model that assigns high probability to object configurations in the image domain consisting of an unknown number of possibly touching or overlapping near-circular objects of approximately a given size. Each layer has an associated binary field that specifies a region corresponding to objects. Overlapping objects are represented by regions in different layers. Within each layer, long-range interactions favor connected components of approximately circular shape, while regions in different layers that overlap are penalized. Used as a prior coupled with a suitable data likelihood, the model can be used for object extraction from images, e.g. cells in biological images or densely-packed tree crowns in remote sensing images. We present a theoretical and experimental analysis of the model, and demonstrate its performance on various synthetic and biomedical images.</p>  uhttp://www.inf.u-szeged.hu/ipcg/publications/Year/2011.complete.xml#Nemeth-etal2011