Edge Detection in Colored Images Using Parallel CNNs and Social Spider Optimization

Edge detection is a crucial issue in computer vision, with convolutional neural networks (CNNs) being a key component in various systems for detecting edges within images, offering numerous practical implementations. This paper introduces a hybrid approach for edge detection in color images using an enhanced holistically led edge detection (HED) structure. The method consists of two primary phases: edge approximation based on parallel convolutional neural networks (PCNNs) and edge enhancement based on social spider optimization (SSO). The first phase uses two parallel CNN models to preliminarily approximate image edges. The first model uses edge-detected images from the Otsu-Canny operator, while the second model accepts RGB color images as input. The output of the proposed PCNN model is compared with pairwise combination of color layers in the input image. In the second phase, the SSO algorithm is used to optimize the edge detection result, modifying edges in the approximate image to minimize differences with the resulting color layer combinations. The experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method achieved a precision of 0.95. Furthermore, the peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index measure (SSIM) values stand at 20.39 and 0.83, respectively. The high PSNR value of our method signifies superior output quality, showing reduced contrast and noise compared to the ground truth image. Similarly, the SSIM value indicates that the method’s edge structure surpasses that of the ground truth image, further affirming its superiority over other methods.