Implicit Active Contour Model with Local and Global Intensity Fitting Energies

Abstract

We propose a new active contour model which integrates a local intensity fitting (LIF) energy with an auxiliary global intensity fitting (GIF) energy. The LIF energy is responsible for attracting the contour toward object boundaries and is dominant near object boundaries, while the GIF energy incorporates global image information to improve the robustness to initialization of the contours. The proposed model not only can provide desirable segmentation results in the presence of intensity inhomogeneity but also allows for more flexible initialization of the contour compared to the RSF and LIF models, and we give a theoretical proof to compute a unique steady state regardless of the initialization; that is, the convergence of the zero-level line is irrespective of the initial function. This means that we can obtain the same zero-level line in the steady state, if we choose the initial function as a bounded function. In particular, our proposed model has the capability of detecting multiple objects or objects with interior holes or blurred edges.