Segmentation of textured polarimetric SAR scenes by likelihood approximation

A hierarchical stepwise optimization process is developed for polarimetric synthetic aperture radar image segmentation. We show that image segmentation can be viewed as a likelihood approximation problem. The likelihood segment merging criteria are derived using the multivariate complex Gaussian, the Wishart distribution, and the K-distribution. In the presence of spatial texture, the Gaussian-Wishart segmentation is not appropriate. The K-distribution segmentation is more effective in textured forested areas. The validity of the product model is also assessed, and a field-adaptable segmentation strategy combining different criteria is examined.