Medical Image Thresholding Using Genetic Algorithm and Fuzzy Membership Functions: A Comparative Study

Thresholding is one of the important steps in image analysis process and used extensively in different image processing techniques. Medical image segmentation plays a very important role in surgery planning, identification of tumours, diagnosis of organs, etc. In this article, a novel approach for medical image segmentation is proposed using a hybrid technique of genetic algorithm and fuzzy logic. Fuzzy logic can handle uncertain and imprecise information. Genetic algorithms help in global optimization, gives good results in noisy environments and supports multi-objective optimization. Gaussian, trapezoidal and triangular membership functions are used separately for calculating the entropy and finding the fitness value. CPU time, Root Mean Square Error, sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy are calculated using the three membership functions separately at threshold levels 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9. MRI images are considered for applying the proposed method and the results are analysed. The experimental results obtained prove the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method.