Shape prior for an edge-based active contours using phase correlation

In this paper, we intend to present a new method to incorporate geometric shape prior into an edge-based active contours in order to improve its robustness to partial occlusions, low contrast and noise. The proposed shape prior is defined after the registration, based on phase correlation, of binary images associated with level set functions of the active contour and a reference shape making the model invariant with respect to Euclidean transformations. Experimental results on synthetic and real images show the ability of the proposed approach to constrain an evolving curve towards a target shapes that may be occluded and cluttered under rigid transformations.