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Fast color quantization using MacQueen’s k-means algorithm

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Abstract

Color quantization (CQ) is an important operation with many applications in computer graphics and image processing and analysis. Clustering algorithms have been extensively applied to this problem. However, despite its popularity as a general purpose clustering algorithm, k-means has not received much attention in the CQ literature because of its high computational requirements and sensitivity to initialization. In this paper, we propose a novel CQ method based on an online k-means formulation due to MacQueen. The proposed method utilizes adaptive and efficient cluster center initialization and quasirandom sampling to attain deterministic, high speed, and high-quality quantization. Experiments on a diverse set of publicly available images demonstrate that the proposed method is significantly faster than the more common batch k-means formulation due to Lloyd while delivering nearly identical results.

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Notes

  1. Strictly speaking, in practice, data sets are not implemented as sets, but as sequences, where elements are ordered and duplicates are allowed. This is especially true for image data sets, which are often stored and accessed in raster order.

  2. In MacQueen’s algorithm, each unit has its own learning rate, which quantifies the number of times that unit won the competition.

  3. The source code of the proposed method is available at https://github.com/skythomp16/MacQueen-Color-Quantization

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Central Arkansas, Conway, AR, USA

    Skyler Thompson, M. Emre Celebi & Krizia H. Buck

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  1. Skyler Thompson
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  2. M. Emre Celebi
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  3. Krizia H. Buck
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Correspondence to M. Emre Celebi.

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Thompson, S., Celebi, M.E. & Buck, K.H. Fast color quantization using MacQueen’s k-means algorithm. J Real-Time Image Proc 17, 1609–1624 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11554-019-00914-6

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