Fourier based feature descriptors for railroad extraction from aerial images

The aim of this study is to automatically differentiate railroads from roads obtained by a general road extraction algorithm. In high resolution aerial images, the sleepers between railroad tracks depict a distinctive texture from other elongated objects. By employing this additional cue, a new Fourier based feature descriptor is developed to distinguish railroad objects in aerial images. After local Fourier features calculation, the periodic railroad texture is locally detected in the frequency domain.