A Region-Based GeneSIS Segmentation Algorithm for the Classification of Remotely Sensed Images

Remote Sensing

Stelios K. Mylonas¹  Dimitris G. Stavrakoudis⁴  John B. Theocharis¹  Paris A. Mastorocostas²  Giles M. Foody³ 

[1] Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece; E-Mail:;Department of Computer Engineering, Technological Education Institute of Central Macedonia, Serres 62124, Greece; E-Mail:;Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece; E-Mail;Laboratory of Forest Management and Remote Sensing, School of Forestry and Natural Environment, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 54124, Greece; E-Mail:

关键词: image segmentation;    object-based classification;    watershed transform;    genetic algorithms;    marker selection;    segmentation fusion;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs70302474

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

This paper proposes an object-based segmentation/classification scheme for remotely sensed images, based on a novel variant of the recently proposed Genetic Sequential Image Segmentation (GeneSIS) algorithm. GeneSIS segments the image in an iterative manner, whereby at each iteration a single object is extracted via a genetic-based object extraction algorithm. Contrary to the previous pixel-based GeneSIS where the candidate objects to be extracted were evaluated through the fuzzy content of their included pixels, in the newly developed region-based GeneSIS algorithm, a watershed-driven fine segmentation map is initially obtained from the original image, which serves as the basis for the forthcoming GeneSIS segmentation. Furthermore, in order to enhance the spatial search capabilities, we introduce a more descriptive encoding scheme in the object extraction algorithm, where the structural search modules are represented by polygonal shapes. Our objectives in the new framework are posed as follows: enhance the flexibility of the algorithm in extracting more flexible object shapes, assure high level classification accuracies, and reduce the execution time of the segmentation, while at the same time preserving all the inherent attributes of the GeneSIS approach. Finally, exploiting the inherent attribute of GeneSIS to produce multiple segmentations, we also propose two segmentation fusion schemes that operate on the ensemble of segmentations generated by GeneSIS. Our approaches are tested on an urban and two agricultural images. The results show that region-based GeneSIS has considerably lower computational demands compared to the pixel-based one. Furthermore, the suggested methods achieve higher classification accuracies and good segmentation maps compared to a series of existing algorithms.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2015 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.