Level Sets Guided by SoDEF-Fitting Energy for River Channel Detection in SAR Images

Abstract

To achieve river channel detection in SAR (synthetic aperture radar) images, we developed a level-set-based model (LSBM) guided by a designed data-fitting energy which is called the SoDEF (sum of dual exponential functions)-fitting energy. Firstly, we designed a function by computing the sum of dual exponential functions to substitute for the quadratic function, and used it to construct the data-fitting energy. Secondly, the adaptive area-fitting centers (AFCs) were computed based on two kinds of grayscale characteristics, which are more accurate and more stable. Thirdly, the Dirac function in gradient descent flow was displaced by an edge indicator function to help the evolving level sets stop at the target edges. Moreover, some regularized terms were incorporated into the objective function to guarantee the model’s stability. The river channel detection experiments conducted with real SAR images indicated that the developed model is superior to the related state-of-the-art methods in its detection accuracy and efficiency.