A Geometric Active Contour Model Based on VFC External Force

Abstract

Due to parametric Active Contour Model (ACM) can not handle topological change, Vector Field Convolution (VFC) field is generalized to the geometric ACM which has topology-adaptable ability. A geometric ACM based on VFC external force is presented. The model energy is minimized by two stages. In the first stage, the LBF method is used to optimize the model based on the image region information, which could get the image global optimum information. In the second stage, the VFC force field pulls the model contours to the object boundary with concave regions when the evolution speed of the model is slow. Since the long-range capture, the VFC force field can pull the contours around the object boundary to the object boundary. The model can improve the model's evolution speed and avoid the weak edges leakage problem which is an annoyance in traditional Level Set methods. Experimental results show the model is effective.