Abstract:
Object based image analysis has gained on the traditional perpixel
multi-spectral based approaches. The main pitfall of using
anisotropic diffusion for creating a multi scale representation
of a remotely sensed image remains the computational
burden. Producing the coarser scales in a multi scale representation
or, diffusing spatially large images involves significant
time and resources. This paper proposes a fast approach
for anisotropic diffusion that overcomes spatial size limitations
by distributing the diffusion as individual sub-processes
over several overlapping sub-images. The overlap areas are
synchronized at specific diffusion time ensuring that the fast
approximation does not deviate too much from its single process
equivalent. This demonstrated for an image, which can
be diffused using a traditional sequential approach. In addition,
experimental data for very large images that can not
efficiently be processed using a sequential approach is illustrated.