Active contour model based on variable exponent p-Laplace equation for image segmentation

In this paper, we propose a region-based active contour model for image segmentation. By combining the region fitting energy based on coefficient of variation with the variable exponent p-Laplace energy, the proposed method can perform well in segmenting complex images. The region fitting energy conducts the evolving curve to reach the boundaries of the objects, and the p-Laplace energy can handle the topological changes and extract the boundaries accurately. In order to eliminate the re-initialization step, an augmented Lagrangian method is employed to solve the optimization problem. The results of experiments on synthetic and real images demonstrate that our method can successfully segment complex object boundaries, and it is robust to noise and not sensitive to the initial position of contours.