Particle segmentation from background image - image

Question

Here in this image, all the black strands and small black dots you can see are particles (foreground) and the white, yellowish, greenish, grayish, and small bluish areas are the backgrounds. I am looking for an algorithm to extract the foreground and replace the background with some known color say: white. Can you please suggest to me a better solution to achieve the target?
Thank you

Answer 1

Simple color thresholding should work here. The idea is to isolate black by using HSV color thresholding with a lower/upper threshold range to obtain a mask then cv2.bitwise_and to get the filtered result
You didn't specify a language so here's an implementation in Python
Code
import cv2
import numpy as np
image = cv2.imread('1.jpg')
# Set minimum and maximum HSV values to display
lower = np.array([0,0,0])
upper = np.array([179,255,52])
# Convert to HSV format and color threshold
hsv = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2HSV)
mask = cv2.inRange(hsv, lower, upper)
result = cv2.bitwise_and(image, image, mask=mask)
result[mask==0] = (255,255,255)
# Display
cv2.imshow('image', image)
cv2.imshow('mask', mask)
cv2.imshow('result', result)
# cv2.imwrite('result.png', result)
cv2.waitKey()
HSV color thresholder script with sliders, remember to change the image file path. You can play with the sliders to refine your segmentation.
import cv2
import numpy as np
def nothing(x):
pass
# Load image
image = cv2.imread('1.jpg')
# Create a window
cv2.namedWindow('image')
# Create trackbars for color change
# Hue is from 0-179 for Opencv
cv2.createTrackbar('HMin', 'image', 0, 179, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('SMin', 'image', 0, 255, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('VMin', 'image', 0, 255, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('HMax', 'image', 0, 179, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('SMax', 'image', 0, 255, nothing)
cv2.createTrackbar('VMax', 'image', 0, 255, nothing)
# Set default value for Max HSV trackbars
cv2.setTrackbarPos('HMax', 'image', 179)
cv2.setTrackbarPos('SMax', 'image', 255)
cv2.setTrackbarPos('VMax', 'image', 255)
# Initialize HSV min/max values
hMin = sMin = vMin = hMax = sMax = vMax = 0
phMin = psMin = pvMin = phMax = psMax = pvMax = 0
while(1):
# Get current positions of all trackbars
hMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('HMin', 'image')
sMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('SMin', 'image')
vMin = cv2.getTrackbarPos('VMin', 'image')
hMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('HMax', 'image')
sMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('SMax', 'image')
vMax = cv2.getTrackbarPos('VMax', 'image')
# Set minimum and maximum HSV values to display
lower = np.array([hMin, sMin, vMin])
upper = np.array([hMax, sMax, vMax])
# Convert to HSV format and color threshold
hsv = cv2.cvtColor(image, cv2.COLOR_BGR2HSV)
mask = cv2.inRange(hsv, lower, upper)
result = cv2.bitwise_and(image, image, mask=mask)
result[mask==0] = (255,255,255)
# Print if there is a change in HSV value
if((phMin != hMin) | (psMin != sMin) | (pvMin != vMin) | (phMax != hMax) | (psMax != sMax) | (pvMax != vMax) ):
print("(hMin = %d , sMin = %d, vMin = %d), (hMax = %d , sMax = %d, vMax = %d)" % (hMin , sMin , vMin, hMax, sMax , vMax))
phMin = hMin
psMin = sMin
pvMin = vMin
phMax = hMax
psMax = sMax
pvMax = vMax
# Display result image
cv2.imshow('image', result)
if cv2.waitKey(10) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
break
cv2.destroyAllWindows()