A multi-band approach to unsupervised scale parameter selection for multi-scale image segmentation

Image segmentation is one of key steps in object based image analysis of very high resolution images. Selecting the appropriate scale parameter becomes a particularly important task in image segmentation. In this study, an unsupervised multi-band approach is proposed for scale parameter selection in the multi-scale image segmentation process, which uses spectral angle to measure the spectral homogeneity of segments. With the increasing scale parameter, spectral homogeneity of segments decreases until they match the objects in the real world. The index of spectral homogeneity is thus used to determine multiple appropriate scale parameters. The performance of the proposed method is compared to a single-band based method through qualitative visual interpretation and quantitative discrepancy measures. Both methods are applied for segmenting two images: a QuickBird scene of an urban area within Beijing, China and a Woldview-2 scene of a suburban area in Kashiwa, Japan. The proposed multi-band based segmentation scale parameter selection method outperforms the single-band based method with the better recognition for diverse land cover objects in different urban landscapes.