Adaptive active contours based on local and global intensity information for image segmentation

This paper proposes a new formulation of active contours in the partial differential equation (PDE) framework. The evolution equation consists of two terms: a force term and a regularization term that smoothes the level set function. The proposed model can handle intensity inhomogeneity by integrating the local and global intensity information into the force term. Moreover, the level set function can be initialized to any bounded function (e.g., a constant function), thus completely eliminating the need of initial contours. Experimental results show that the proposed model can effectively and quickly segment many synthesized and real images, especially for images with intensity inhomogeneity.