Feature extraction of honeybee forewings and hindlegs using image processing and active contours

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Tezin Türü: Yüksek Lisans

Tezin Yürütüldüğü Kurum: Orta Doğu Teknik Üniversitesi, Mühendislik Fakültesi, Elektrik ve Elektronik Mühendisliği Bölümü, Türkiye

Tezin Onay Tarihi: 2004

Öğrenci: AYŞEGÜL GÖNÜLŞEN

Danışman: UĞUR HALICI

Özet:

Honeybees have a rich genetic diversity in Anatolia. This is reflected in the presence of numerous subspecies of honeybee in Turkey. In METU, Department of Biology, honeybee populations of different regions in Turkey are investigated in order to characterize population variation in these regions. A total of 23 length and angle features belonging to the honeybee hindlegs and forewings are measured in these studies using a microscope and a monitor. These measurements are carried out by placing rulers on the monitor that shows the honeybee image and getting the length and angle features. However, performing measurements in this way is a time consuming process and is open to human-dependent errors. In this thesis, a 3semi-automated honeybee feature extraction system4 is presented. The aim is to increase the efficiency by decreasing the time spent on handling these measurements and by increasing the accuracy of measured hindleg and forewing features. The problem is studied from the acquisition of the microscope images, to the feature extraction of the honeybee features. In this scope, suitable methods are developed for segmentation of honeybee hindleg and forewing images. Within intermediate steps, blob analysis is utilized, and edges of the forewing and hindlegs are thinned using skeletonization. Templates that represent the forewing and hindleg edges are formed by either Bezier Curves or Polynomial Interpolation. In the feature extraction phase, Active Contour (Snake) algorithm is applied to the images in order to find the critical points using these templates.