A statistical distribution texton feature for synthetic aperture radar image classification

Abstract

We propose a novel statistical distribution texton (s-texton) feature for synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image classification. Motivated by the traditional texton feature, the framework of texture analysis, and the importance of statistical distribution in SAR images, the s-texton feature is developed based on the idea that parameter estimation of the statistical distribution can replace the filtering operation in the traditional texture analysis of SAR images. In the process of extracting the s-texton feature, several strategies are adopted, including pre-processing, spatial gridding, parameter estimation, texton clustering, and histogram statistics. Experimental results on TerraSAR data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed s-texton feature.