An Efficient Variational-Level-Set Model Based on Adaptive Local Fitted Image for Noisy Image Segmentation

In image processing and computer vision, image segmentation plays a fundamental role since it can make images easier to analyze. However, noise is easily introduced into images and brings great challenges to image segmentation. This paper focuses on the segmentation problem of noisy images and proposes an efficient variational level set model based on adaptive local fitted image to handle it. By utilizing normalized local entropy and local means, an adaptive local fitted image is proposed and introduced into the data term to enhance the robustness of the model against noise. Then a penalty term is proposed to reduce the deviation of the adaptive local fitted image from the original image by punishing the difference between them, so as to guarantee the accuracy of segmentation results. Later, the total variational regularization term is introduced into the model, so the level set function can be smoothed and the effect of noise on the active contour can be further reduced. The energy functional of the whole model is convex rigorously, which can reach the minimum and should have good properties in noisy image segmentation. Numerous experiments on synthetic, natural, synthetic aperture radar and oil spill images demonstrate that the proposed model is strongly robust to different types and levels of noise, which indicates its good performance in noisy image segmentation.