Calcaneofibular Ligament Ultrasound Image Segmentation Based on Advanced Image Processing Techniques

Calcaneofibular ligament is a fibrous tissue that connects calcaneus bone to fibula bone and it can be visualized using ultrasound imaging. However, due to contrast variation and inhomogeneous textured nature of calcaneofibular ligament tissues in ultrasound images, segmentation of calcaneofibular ligament is a challenging issue. A framework has been proposed for the accurate segmentation of calcaneofibular ligament form ultrasound images to address the issue. The proposed framework comprises of the following: (1) contrast enhancement using adaptive histogram equalization, (2) energy minimization using Fractional Order - Darwinian Particle Swarm Optimization, and (3) calcaneofibular ligament region extraction using Chan-Vese method. The proposed framework is not only helped in accurate segmentation of ultrasound images, it also helpful in efficient computation with lowest time.