Efficient numerical schemes for gradient vector flow

Since its publication more than 10 years ago, the gradient vector flow (GVF) technique has been used and adapted to various models and problems. Its effectiveness has greatly contributed to its popularity. The main drawback of GVF and its generalisation, however, is their expensive computation load and its consequence on the capture range. In this work, we propose and compare different efficient numerical schemes to solve the GVF and its generalisations.

► Efficient schemes for the minimisation of the gradient vector flow are proposed. ► We analysed and compared six different schemes, DCT solver, AOS, LOD, AMOS, AFI and ADES. ► The proposed AFI scheme shows a better behaviour than the LOD and AOS. ► We have shown that the ADES scheme may be a good alternative to the multigrid technique.