Objective Evaluation of Relative Segmentation Quality

When working in image and video segmentation, the major objective is to design an algorithm producing the appropriate segmentation results for the particular goals of the application addressed. Therefore, the assessment of the segmentation quality assumes a crucial importance to evaluate the likeliness that the application targets are met. Since no well-established methods for objective segmentation quality evaluation are currently available, this paper’s major goal is to propose objective metrics for the evaluation of relative segmentation quality for both individual objects and the overall segmentation partition. The paper presents a methodology for performing objective evaluation of relative segmentation quality, identifies the relevant features to be compared against those of the reference segmentation, and proposes appropriate objective quality metrics. These metrics build on the existing knowledge on segmentation quality evaluation and also on some relevant aspects from the video quality evaluation field.