The Mountain Habitats Segmentation and Change Detection Dataset

In this paper, we present a challenging dataset for the purpose of segmentation and change detection in photographic images of mountain habitats. We also propose a baseline algorithm for habitats segmentation to allow for performance comparison. The dataset consists of high resolution image pairs of historic and repeat photographs of mountain habitats acquired in the Canadian Rocky Mountains for ecological surveys. With a time lapse of 70 to 100 years between the acquisition of historic and repeat images, these photographs contain critical information about ecological change in the Rockies. The challenging aspects of analyzing these image pairs come mostly from the perspective (oblique) view of the photographs and the lack of color information in the historic photographs. The baseline algorithm that we propose here is based on texture analysis and machine learning techniques. Classifier training and results validation are made possible by the availability of expert manual ground-truth segmentation for each image. The results obtained with the baseline algorithm are promising and serve as a reference for new and improved segmentation and change detection algorithms.