Geometric shape prior to region-based active contours using Fourier-based shape alignment

In this paper, we present a novel method to incorporate geometric shape prior into region-based active contours. Prior knowledge is obtained from a reference shape. This shape reference is used to define a new energy term obtained through a Fourier-based shape alignment. The new energy is invariant with respect to Euclidean transformations. Experimental results show the ability of the geometric shape prior to constraint an evolving curve to meet target shape and to show the new method benefits on segmentation results in presence of occlusion and noise.