Texture analysis through a Markovian modelling and fuzzy classification: Application to urban area extraction from satellite images

Herein we propose a complete procedure to analyze and classify the texture of an image. We apply this scheme to solve a specific image processing problem: urban areas detection in satellite images. First we propose to analyze the texture through the modelling of the luminance field with eight different chain-based models. We then derived a texture parameter from these models. The effect of the lattice anisotropy is corrected by a renormalization group technique coming from statistical physics. This parameter, which takes into account local conditional variances of the image, is compared to classical methods of texture analysis. Afterwards we develop a modified fuzzy Cmeans algorithm that includes an entropy term. The advantage of such an algorithm is that the number of classes does not need to be known a priori. Besides this algorithm provides us with further information, i.e. the probability that a given pixel belongs to a given cluster. Finally we introduce this information in a Markovian model of segmentation. Some results on SPOT5 simulated images, SPOT3 images and ERS1 radar images are presented. These images are provided by the French National Space Agency (CNES) and the European Space Agency (ESA).