A fast threshold segmentation method for froth image base on the pixel distribution characteristic.

With the increase of the camera resolution, the number of pixels contained in froth image is increased, which brings many challenges to image segmentation. Froth size and distribution are the important index in froth flotation. The segmentation of froth images is always a problem in building flotation model. In segmenting froth images, Otsu method is usually used to get a binary image for classification of froth images, this method can get a satisfactory segmentation result. However, each gray level is required to calculate each of the between-class variance, it takes a longer time in froth images with a large number of pixels. To solve this problem, an improved method is proposed in this paper. Most froth images have the pixel distribution characteristic that the gray histogram curve is a sawtooth shape. The proposed method uses polynomial to fit the curve of gray histogram and takes the characteristic of gray histogram's valley into consideration in Otsu method. Two performance comparison methods are introduced and used. Experimental comparison between Otsu method and the proposed method shows that the proposed method has a satisfactory image segmentation with a low computing time.