A Variational Level Set SAR Image Segmentation Approach Based on Statistical Model

Inhalt:
SAR image automatic segmentation is a hard work due to the presence of speckle noise. In this paper, a variational level set approach for SAR image is presented. A new energy functional is defined by taking account of a statistical model of speckle noise. The energy functional is with respect to level set function, which is obviously different from the energy functional with respect to parameterized curve in general level set approach. Segmentation is implemented by minimizing the energy formulation via level set approach. The performance of the approach is verified by MSTAR SAR images. It shows that the energy well describes the property of SAR image, thus accurately and automatically extracts the regions of interest in SAR image but without any speckle pre-processing step.