SAR target segmentation based on shape prior

It´s very challenging to interpret the SAR image due to the speckle noise and target´s heterogeneity, etc. And the use of image information alone often leads to poor segmentation. However, the introduction of shape prior into the active contours has proved to be very effective to segment the target. In this study, we define the shape of SAR target and introduce it into our active contours. To avoid the irregularity of level set evolution, a novel potential function is introduced to regularize the level set function. And the energy of gray intensity helps to locate the target while the energy of target´s shape regularizes the target´s contour. Experiments on both ship and building segmentation prove the validity of the proposal algorithm.