Miguel Angel Veganzones

Braids of partitions for the hierarchical representation and segmentation of multimodal images

Abstract

Hierarchical data representations are powerful tools to analyze images and have found numerous applications in image processing. When it comes to multimodal images however, the fusion of multiple hierarchies remains an open question. Recently, the concept of braids of partitions has been proposed as a theoretical tool and possible solution to this issue. In this paper, we demonstrate the relevance of the braid structure for the hierarchical representation of multimodal images. We first propose a fully operable procedure to build a braid of partitions from two hierarchical representations. We then derive a framework for multimodal image segmentation, relying on an energetic minimization scheme conducted on the braid structure. The proposed approach is investigated on different multimodal images scenarios, and the obtained results confirm its ability to efficiently handle the multimodal information to produce more accurate segmentation outputs.

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Advances in utilization of hierarchical representations in remote sensing data analysis

Abstract

The latest developments in sensor design for remote sensing and Earth observation purposes are leading to images always more complex to analyze. Low-level pixel-based processing is becoming unadapted to efficiently handle the wealth of information they contain, and higher levels of abstraction are required. Region-based representations intend to exploit images as collections of regions of interest bearing some semantic meaning, thus easing their interpretation. However, the scale of analysis of the images has to be fixed beforehand, which can be problematic as different applications may not require the same scale of analysis. On the other hand, hierarchical representations are multiscale descriptions of images, as they encompass in their structures all potential regions of interest, organized in a hierarchical manner. Thus, they allow to explore the image at various levels of details and can serve as a single basis for many different further processings. Thanks to its flexibility, the binary partition tree (BPT) representation is one of the most popular hierarchical representations, and has received a lot of attention lately. This article draws a comprehensive review of the most recent works involving BPT representations for various remote sensing data analysis tasks, such as image segmentation and filtering, object detection or hyperspectral classification, and anomaly detection.

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