Multiresolution Gauss-Markov random field models for texture segmentation

This paper presents multiresolution models for Gauss–Markov random fields (GMRF’s) with applications to texture segmentation. Coarser resolution sample fields are obtained by subsampling the sample field at fine resolution. Although the Markov property is lost under such resolution transformation, coarse resolution non-Markov random fields can be effectively approximated by Markov fields. We present two techniques to estimate the GMRF parameters at coarser resolutions from the fine resolution parameters, one by minimizing the Kullback–Leibler distance and another based on local conditional distribution invariance. We also allude to the fact that different GMRF parameters at the fine resolution can result in the same probability measure after subsampling and present the results for first- and second-order cases. We apply this multiresolution model to texture segmentation. Different texture regions in an image are modeled by GMRF’s and the associated parameters are assumed to be known. Parameters at lower resolutions are estimated from the fine resolution parameters. The coarsest resolution data is first segmented and the segmentation results are propagated upward to the finer resolution. We use the iterated conditional mode (ICM) minimization at all resolutions. Our experiments with synthetic, Brodatz texture, and real satellite images show that the multiresolution technique results in a better segmentation and requires lesser computation than the single resolution algorithm.