A Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) is a probabilistic model used for clustering and density estimation. It assumes that data is generated from a mixture of several Gaussian distributions, each representing a cluster within the dataset. Unlike K-means, which assigns data points to the nearest cluster centroid deterministically, GMM considers each data point as belonging to each cluster with a certain probability, allowing for soft clustering. GMM is ideal when: Clusters have elliptical shapes or different spreads : GMM captures varying shapes and densities, unlike K-means, which assumes clusters are spherical. Soft clustering is preferred : If you want to know the probability of a data point belonging to each cluster (not a hard assignment). Data has overlapping clusters : GMM allows a point to belong partially to multiple clusters, which is helpful when clusters have significant overlap. Applications of GMM Image Segmentation : Used to segment images into regions, where each region can be...
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