Semi Automatic Building Segmentation using Balloons from 1m Resolution Aerial Images

This paper proposes a new building segmentation method from 1m resolution imagery using an Active Contour Model, known as "Balloons". The original balloons, which was designed by Cohen(Cohen, 1991) to extract features from medical images, are modified for building segmentation. The proposed method consists of two phases. Firstly, building boundaries are extracted by balloons with a given position on buildings from an operator. Since balloons actively adjust their shapes according to the boundaries, there is no more shape limitations on detecting buildings. Secondly, buildings are segmented by connecting the corners detected from the building boundaries, because most buildings, which are man-made objects, are effectively described by polygons. The test results show that most buildings are segmented efficiently and easily. The proposed method is new and timely as 1m resolution spaceborne imagery will be available in the very near future. The proposed method can be used fur operational building segmentation from such imagery.