Image-based rock typing using local homogeneity filter and Chan-Vese model

Abstract

Image-based rock typing is carried out to classify an image of the heterogeneous rock sample into different rock types where each rock type can be treated as a homogeneous porous medium. In this study, we propose an innovative method for rock typing of the heterogeneous rock sample via three steps. First, the target image, a segmented binary image with two phases of pore and solid, is consecutively inputted into two filters of a local homogeneity filter and an average filter to increase the contrast between different rock types and decrease the contrast within each single rock type. Second, Chan-Vese model is applied to classify the filtered image into different rock types. Third, a thresholding is used to remove the particles, which are treated as noisy particles, smaller than a given preset size. The main idea of the local homogeneity filtering introduced in this study is undertaken by counting the number of pixels that possess the same phases as the center pixel within a 3 × 3 pixels neighborhood. This process is carried out iteratively, which means the previously estimated pixel will be used in the estimation of its neighbor unprocessed pixels. We demonstrate the application of the proposed method in several heterogeneous images and present good performance.