Color quantization is bound to lose spatial information of color distribution. If too much necessary spatial distribution information of color is lost in JSEG, it is difficult or even impossible for JSEG to segment image correctly. Enlightened from segmentation based on fuzzy theories, soft class-map is constracted to solve that problem. The definitions of values and other related ones are adjusted according to the soft class-map. With more detailed values obtained from soft class map, more color distribution information is preserved. Experiments on a synthetic image and many other color images illustrate that JSEG with soft class-map can solve efficiently the problem that in a region there may exist color gradual variation in a smooth transition. It is a more robust method especially for images which haven't been heavily blurred near boundaries of underlying regions.

unsupervised segmentation, color segmentation, color texture segmentation, fuzzy method