1. A method for image segmentation comprising the steps of: representing n-dimensional image data as a m-dimensional structure to form an image representation; forming one or more regions of a q-ary object interaction to form a specified q-ary inter-object relationship; calculating a cost functional related to the m-dimensional structure and the one or more regions of the q-ary object interaction; and segmenting the n-dimensional image data in one or more layer surfaces of multiple objects using the cost functional, the image representation, and the specified q-ary inter-object relationship to produce segmented layers.