Edited by author 10-21-2004 12:15 PM
It seems to me that the hard constraints can be overruled, as they are not assigned an infinite cost. But if this is the case, the user assigned bits are not believed to be 100% true. It is interesting that the algorithm doesn't trust the user.

Also, why separating two objects from each other is not an issue but we are only interested in separation of background from objects (I think because it is more difficult)?