  Formulations of the Image Decomposition Problem as a Multicut Problem (MP)
w.r.t. a superpixel graph have received considerable attention. In contrast,
instances of the MP w.r.t. a pixel grid graph have received little attention,
firstly, because the MP is NP-hard and instances w.r.t. a pixel grid graph are
hard to solve in practice, and, secondly, due to the lack of long-range terms
in the objective function of the MP. We propose a generalization of the MP with
long-range terms (LMP). We design and implement two efficient algorithms
(primal feasible heuristics) for the MP and LMP which allow us to study
instances of both problems w.r.t. the pixel grid graphs of the images in the
BSDS-500 benchmark. The decompositions we obtain do not differ significantly
from the state of the art, suggesting that the LMP is a competitive formulation
of the Image Decomposition Problem. To demonstrate the generality of the LMP,
we apply it also to the Mesh Decomposition Problem posed by the Princeton
benchmark, obtaining state-of-the-art decompositions.
