COMPUTATIONALLY EFFICIENT METHOD FOR IMAGE SEGMENTATION WITH INTENSITY AND TEXTURE DISCRIMINATION

An automatic method for depicting texture in a digital image is provided. A category is automatically assigned to each pixel in the digital image based on one of a set of brightness values associated with the pixel. Each of the brightness values corresponds to a range of intensities associated with the pixels in the digital image, and one of a set of texture values associated with the pixel. Each of the texture values corresponds to a range of differences in the value between the intensity of the pixel and the intensity of neighbors of the pixel. A shading level is automatically assigned to each of the pixels based on the categories. A processed image is automatically produced based on the shading levels, the processed image indicating the texture in the image.