Polarimetric SAR Image Segmentation with B-Splines and a New Statistical Model

We present an approach for polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) image region boundary detection based on the use of B-Spline active contours and a new model for polarimetric SAR data: the GH P distribution. In order to detect the boundary of a region, initial BSpline curves are specified, either automatically or manually, and the proposed algorithm uses a deformable contours technique to find the boundary. In doing this, the parameters of the polarimetric GH P model for the data are estimated, in order to find the transition points between the region being segmented and the surrounding area. This is a local algorithm since it works only on the region to be segmented. Results of its performance are presented.