Abstract
High-resolution satellite images like Quickbird images have been applied into many fields. However, researches on segmenting such kind of images are rather insufficient partly due to the complexity and large size of such images. In this study, a fast and accurate segmentation approach was proposed. First, a homogeneity gradient image was produced. Then, an efficient watershed transform was employed to gain the initial segments. Finally, an improved region merging approach was proposed to merge the initial segments by taking a strategy to minimize the overall heterogeneity increased within segments at each merging step, and the final segments were obtained. Compared with the segmentation approach of a commercial software eCognition, the proposed one was a bit faster and a bit more accurate when applied to the Quickbird images.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Acharyya, M., De, R.K., Kundu, M.K.: Segmentation of Remotely Sensed Images Using Wavelet Features and Their Evaluation in Soft Computing Framework. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 41(12), 2900–2905 (2003)
Baatz, M., Schäpe, A.: Multiresolution Segmentation – an optimization approach for high quality multi-scale image segmentation. In: Strobl, J., et al. (eds.) Angewandte Geographische Infor-mationsverarbeitung XII, pp. 12–23. Wichmann, Heidelberg (2000)
Ballard, D., Brown, C.: Computer Vision. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1982)
Beucher, S., Meyer, F.: The Morphological Approach to Segmentation: the Watershed Transformation. In: Dougherty, E.R. (ed.) Mathematical Morphology and its Applications to Image Processing, pp. 433–481. Marcel Dekker, New York (1993)
Bosworth, J., Koshimizu, T., Acton, S.T.: Multi-resolution Segmentation of Soil Moisture Imagery by Watershed Pyramids with Region Merging. Int. J. Remote Sensing 24(4), 741–760 (2003)
Dammert, P.B.G., Askne, J.I.H., Kuhlmann, S.: Unsupervised Segmentation of Multitemporal Interferometric SAR Images. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 37(5), 2259–2271 (1999)
Deng, Y., Manjunath, B.S., Shin, H.: Color Image Segmentation. In: Proc. of IEEE Computer Society Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition, CVPR 1999, vol. 2, pp. 446–451 (1999)
Dong, Y., Forester, B.C., Milne, A.K.: Segmentation of Radar Imagery Using the Gaussian Markov Random Field Model. Int. J. Remote Sensing 120(8), 1617–1639 (1999)
Dong, Y., Forster, B.C., Milne, A.K.: Comparison of Radar Image Segmentation by Gaussian- and Gamma-Markov Random Field Models. Int. J. Remote Sensing 24(4), 711–722 (2003)
Haris, K., Efstratiadis, S., Maglaveras, N., Katsaggelos, A.: Hybrid Image Segmentation Using Watersheds and Fast Region Merging. IEEE Trans. Image Process. 7(12), 1684–1699 (1998)
Hill, R.A.: Image Segmentation for Humid Tropical Forest Classification in Landsat TM Data. Int. J. Remote Sensing 20(5), 1039–1044 (1999)
Jing, F., Li, M.J., Zhang, H.J., Zhang, B.: Unsupervised Image Segmentation Using Local Homogeneity Analysis. In: Proc. IEEE International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (2003)
Li, W., Bếniế, G.B., He, D.C., et al.: Watershed-based Hierarchical SAR Image Segmentation. Int. J. Remote Sensing 20(17), 3377–3390 (1999)
Lira, J., Frulla, L.: An Automated Region Growing Algorithm for Segmentation of Texture Regions in SAR Images. Int. J. Remote Sensing 19(18), 3595–3606 (1998)
Pal, S.K., Ghosh, A., Shankar, B.U.: Segmentation of Remotely Sensed Images with Fuzzy Thresholding, and Quantitative Evaluation. Int. J. Remote sensing 21(11), 2269–2300 (2000)
Pesaresi, M., Benediktsson, J.A.: A New Approach for the Morphological Segmentation of High-resolution Satellite Imagery. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 39(2), 309–320 (2001)
Pekkarinen, A.: A Method for the Segmentation of Very High Spatial Resolution Images of Forested Landscapes. Int. J. Remote Sensing 23(14), 2817–2836 (2002)
Raucoules, D., Thomson, K.P.B.: Adaptation of the Hierarchical Stepwise Segmentation Algorithm for Automatic Segmentation of a SAR Mosaic. Int. J. Remote Sensing 20(10), 2111–2116 (1999)
Smet, P.D., Pires, R.L.: Implementation and analysis of an optimized rainfalling watershed algorithm. In: Proc. SPIE, Image and Video Communications and Processing, vol. 3974, pp. 759–766 (2000)
Vincent, L., Soille, P.: Watershed in Digital Spaces: an Efficient Algorithm Based on Immersion Simulation. IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence 13, 583–598 (1991)
Wu, X.: Adaptive Split-and-merge Segmentation Based on Piecewise Least-square Approximation. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Machine Intell. 15, 808–815 (1993)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2004 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Chen, Q., Zhou, C., Luo, J., Ming, D. (2004). Fast Segmentation of High-Resolution Satellite Images Using Watershed Transform Combined with an Efficient Region Merging Approach. In: Klette, R., Žunić, J. (eds) Combinatorial Image Analysis. IWCIA 2004. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3322. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30503-3_46
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-30503-3_46
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-23942-0
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-30503-3
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)