We address the issue of adapting optical images-based edge detection techniques for use in Polarimetric Synthetic Aperture Radar (PolSAR) imagery. We modify the gravitational edge detection technique (inspired by the Law of Universal Gravity) proposed by Lopez-, using the non-standard neighbourhood configuration proposed by , to reduce the speckle noise in polarimetric SAR imagery. We compare the modified and unmodified versions of the gravitational edge detection technique with the well-established one proposed by Canny, as well as with a recent multiscale fuzzy-based technique proposed by Lopez- We also address the issues of aggregation of gray level images before and after edge detection and of filtering. All techniques addressed here are applied to a mosaic built using class distributions obtained from a real scene, as well as to the true PolSAR image; the mosaic results are assessed using Baddeley's Delta Metric. Our experiments show that modifying the gravitational edge detection technique with a non-standard neighbourhood configuration produces better results than the original technique, as well as the other techniques used for comparison. The experiments show that adapting edge detection methods from Computational Intelligence for use in PolSAR imagery is a new field worthy of exploration.
This paper describes a computational approach to edge detection. The success of the approach depends on the definition of a comprehensive set of goals for the computation of edge points. These goals must be precise enough to delimit the desired behavior of the detector while making minimal assumptions about the form of the solution. We define detection and localization criteria for a class of edges, and present mathematical forms for these criteria as functionals on the operator impulse response. A third criterion is then added to ensure that the detector has only one response to a single edge. We use the criteria in numerical optimization to derive detectors for several common image features, including step edges. On specializing the analysis to step edges, we find that there is a natural uncertainty principle between detection and localization performance, which are the two main goals. With this principle we derive a single operator shape which is optimal at any scale. The optimal detector has a simple approximate implementation in which edges are marked at maxima in gradient magnitude of a Gaussian-smoothed image. We extend this simple detector using operators of several widths to cope with different signal-to-noise ratios in the image. We present a general method, called feature synthesis, for the fine-to-coarse integration of information from operators at different scales. Finally we show that step edge detector performance improves considerably as the operator point spread function is extended along the edge.