Techniques and Challenges of Image Segmentation: A Review

Image segmentation, which has become a research hotspot in the field of image processing and computer vision, refers to the process of dividing an image into meaningful and non-overlapping regions, and it is an essential step in natural scene understanding. Despite decades of effort and many achievements, there are still challenges in feature extraction and model design. In this paper, we review the advancement in image segmentation methods systematically. According to the segmentation principles and image data characteristics, three important stages of image segmentation are mainly reviewed, which are classic segmentation, collaborative segmentation, and semantic segmentation based on deep learning. We elaborate on the main algorithms and key techniques in each stage, compare, and summarize the advantages and defects of different segmentation models, and discuss their applicability. Finally, we analyze the main challenges and development trends of image segmentation techniques.