A Force Field Driven SOM for boundary detection

We will introduce a method to extract object boundaries from an image. This method utilizes a deformable curve based on the Self Organizing Map algorithm. The proposed SOM has some unique properties such as batch update and neuron insertion/deletion. These properties can make the SOM converge to object concavities as well as maintain a uniform distribution of neurons along the SOM. In comparison with other traditional active contour methods, this algorithm is less sensitive to initialization more flexible in noisy conditions. It outperforms the Gradient Vector Flow method.