4358 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 50, NO.
11, NOVEMBER 2012
A New Statistical-Based Kurtosis Wavelet Energy
Feature for Texture Recognition of SAR Images
Gholamreza Akbarizadeh
AbstractIn this paper, an efficient algorithm for texture recog-
nition of synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images is developed based
on wavelet transform as a feature extraction tool and support vec-
tor machine (SVM) as a classifier. SAR image segmentation is an
important step in texture recognition of SAR images. SAR images
cannot be segmented successfully by using traditional methods
because of the existence of speckle noise in SAR images. The
algorithm, proposed in this paper, extracts the texture feature by
using wavelet transform; then, it forms a feature vector composed
of kurtosis value of wavelet energy feature of SAR image. In the
next step, segmentation of different textures is applied by using
feature vector and level set function. At last, an SVM classifier is
designed and trained by using normalized feature vectors of each
region texture. The testing sets of SAR images are segmented by
this trained SVM. Experimental results on both agricultural and
urban SAR images show that the proposed algorithm is effective
for classification of different textures in SAR images, and it is also
insensitive to the intensity.
Index TermsFourth-order normalized cumulant, kurtosis
wavelet energy (KWE), SAR image classification, speckle, syn-
thetic aperture radar (SAR).
I. I NTRODUCTION
I N MANY applications, such as the global monitoring for the
environment, recognizing and tracking special objects, map-
ping the Earths resources, and developing military systems,
it is often beneficial to have an imaging system which is able
to provide broad-area imaging at high resolutions and acquire
images in inclement weather or during night as well as day.
Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imaging system can provide
these requirements. SAR enhances optical imaging abilities
because of the unique reactions of xerographic targets to radar
frequencies and because of the minimum restrictions on time of
day and atmospheric situations.
SAR imaging systems are known as the most popular remote
sensing technique greatly used in the past decades because of
their capability to be utilized in all weather conditions, day and
night photography time, and the high spatial resolution [1]. In
order to recognize and identify selected objects, SAR can pro-
vide high-resolution images to distinguish terrain features [2].
However, SAR image processing is extremely difficult because
Manuscript received September 29, 2010; revised March 27, 2011, May 14,
2011, July 21, 2011, and November 10, 2011; accepted April 1, 2012. Date
of publication May 23, 2012; date of current version October 24, 2012. This
work was supported by the Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz as a research
proposal with code 901.
The author is with the Electrical Engineering Department, Engineering
Faculty, Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz 61357-831351, Iran
(e-mail: g.akbari@scu.ac.ir).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TGRS.2012.2194787
0196-2892/$31.00 2012 IEEE
of the speckle noise [2][5]. The speckle noise is a fully
developed noise which usually affects SAR images. Speckle
phenomenon can be described as multiplicative noise, with
standard deviation equal to pixel reflectivity value [6]. The
probability density function (PDF) of the pixel intensities in
SAR images is also impressed by speckle noise. This phe-
nomenon can be expressed by the nonlinear intensity inhomo-
geneity in SAR images [2]. As a result of speckle noise effect
on pixel intensities in SAR images, this is one of the main
reasons for SAR imaging, which is a crucial issue for accurate
segmentation and classification. Accordingly, traditional seg-
mentation and classification methods based on intensity cannot
be used to SAR image processing because of speckle noise
effect on pixel intensity in SAR images. The main scope of the
image segmentation and classification is to categorize pixels
into obvious image regions that are easier to analyze. Thus,
segmentation can be used for image partitioning problems, and
classification can be used for object recognition purposes.
Active contour models or snakes have been used as one
of curve-evolution-based methods for global image segmen-
tation [7]. These methods are classified into two major cate-
gories: edge-based methods [8][10] and region-based methods
[11][13]. These methods either have weak performances in
facing with weak object boundaries in SAR images, or they are
sensitive to the location of initial contour and pixel intensities.
Furthermore, these methods are only useful to segment the
extended areas such as rivers and urban and agricultural areas.
On the other hand, nonlinearity of intensity inhomogeneity, as
mentioned earlier, often occurs in SAR images from different
modalities. Intensity inhomogeneity can be addressed by some
active contour models which are widely known as piecewise
smooth models [14][17]. Recently, Li et al. [18] have proposed
a region-based active contour model by defining a region-
scalable fitting energy function that locally approximates the
image intensities on two sides of a contour. This model relies on
the intensity inhomogeneity. Nevertheless, nonlinear intensity
inhomogeneity which is usually attendant with SAR images
cannot be addressed in all of these methods.
However, recent SAR image segmentation models have been
developed containing generic segmentation procedure [19],
[20], spectral data clustering algorithms [3], [21][23], fuzzy
clustering algorithms [24], and level set methods [2], [4].
A generic segmentation method, which is conformed to
gamma PDF of SAR images, is proposed by Galland et al.
[19] for SAR image segmentation. This parametric approach
is on the basis of a polygonal grid model with a hypothetical
unknown number of regions. In this approach, the number of
regions of the partition is approximated by minimizing the
stochastic complexity. However, when the gray values of SAR
images are not correctly described by gamma PDF, like in
AKBARIZADEH: NEW STATISTICAL-BASED KWE FEATURE FOR TEXTURE RECOGNITION
textured speckle images, this technique will fail. Furthermore,
since a parametric noise reconstruction of the segmentation
procedure is regarded, the parameters of regions need to be
adjusted, particularly when the data differ from gamma PDF
such as in textured regions. Thus, this parametric procedure
only illustrates a unique class of textured data which can lead to
analogous limitations to those obtained with the gamma PDF.
The same gamma PDF distributed-based method as that
in [19] was exerted with different noise models by Delyon
and Rfrgier [20]. As a comparison with the segmentation
algorithm proposed in [19], this approach has some evident
advantages. It is established on a polygonal grid which can
have an arbitrary structure, and its region number and normalcy
of its borders are acquired by minimizing the stochastic com-
plexity of a determined quantity version on Q levels of the
image [20]. Unlike in [19], this approach reaches to a standard
model without parameters that need to be tuned by the user.
However, the proper value of Q, which minimizes the number
of misclassified pixels, could not be computed automatically in
that procedure. Also, this procedure may fail due to the nonlin-
ear intensity inhomogeneity phenomenon, which is mentioned
earlier, if a texture region of a SAR image has other attributes
of parametric noise models such as Poisson or Gaussian.
In [3] and [21][23], various schemes of spectral clustering
algorithms were developed. These spectral clustering algo-
rithms have very evident advantages compared with the tradi-
tional clustering algorithms. Some of these spectral clustering
algorithms can identify the clusters of irregular shapes and ob-
tain the globally optimal solutions in a relaxed continuous do-
main by eigendecomposition [3]. However, the computational
complexity problem is an imperfection that exists in these meth-
ods, and they are computationally expensive because of the use
of a coherence matrix fixed by the similarity of each pair of pix-
els. Thus, the method needs to compute the eigenvectors of the
coherence matrix. Furthermore, spectral clustering algorithms
need to allocate a parameter, namely, the scaling parameter in
the Gaussian radial basis function (RBF). Appropriate allocat-
ing of is a crucial issue to obtain good segmentation results
in spectral clustering algorithms. Unfortunately, it is difficult to
select the appropriate value, and it is always set manually. The
improper value of can corrupt the abilities because spectral
clustering algorithms are highly sensitive to , and different
values of may lead to extremely different results [3].
In [4] and [24], two new SAR image segmentation models
were presented based on intensity homogeneity in each region
as well as no purpose for segmenting the special objects in
SAR images. On the other hand, nonlinearity of intensity
inhomogeneity often occurs in SAR images as discussed earlier.
These two new methods cannot address the nonlinear intensity
inhomogeneity phenomenon. Moreover, these methods need an
initial curve to be created by the user.
In this paper, we first propose an efficient method of SAR
image segmentation by defining a new energy function, which
is based on fourth-order normalized cumulant concept, named
kurtosis wavelet energy (KWE). We demonstrate that KWE
energy function can be used as an efficient feature for texture
discrimination in SAR images. In other words, this statistic-
based energy function is a good texture feature for SAR image
segmentation problem. Kurtosis is a fourth-order normalized
cumulant concluded by working toward the higher order statis-
4359
tics (HOS) in statistics subjects. We derive the KWE energy
function by implementing the wavelet coefficient energy extrac-
tion algorithm and level set functions. Then, an SVM classifier
is designed and trained by using normalized feature vector
composed of wavelet energy feature, KWE feature, and gray
values of eight neighborhood of SAR image. This normalized
feature vector is formed for each region texture of SAR image.
Statistical properties of texture of each region in SAR image
can be extracted well by this normalized feature vector because
of using the higher order cumulant (fourth order) in feature
formulation design. We will show in this paper that, whenever
the order of cumulant as a feature for a SAR image increases,
this feature will give the more statistical properties of a specific
region from a SAR image, and subsequently, it will outperform
the accuracy of texture recognition process of SAR image.
Note that our feature extraction section method, termed as
KWE, is also related to the skewness wavelet energy (SWE)
model which is proposed in [2] where the skewness value of
the wavelet coefficient energy of the local intensity values in
each region of SAR image is derived and the SWE values of the
whole regions are used as the minimizers of the wavelet energy
function. In [2], the lower order of cumulant (third order) is
used as well as there is not any classifier scheme, and only the
segmentation process is done. On the other hand, in this paper,
a local texture of each region of a SAR image is segmented
well, and then, a classifier is developed for texture recognition
purposes.
This paper is organized as follows. In Section II, the feature
extraction step for SAR image segmentation is performed by
computing the KWE formulation as an effective feature for
texture segmentation and classification in SAR images. In
Section III, derivation of the level set formulation with KWE
energy is presented. In Section IV, the recognition step of our
algorithm is performed. For this purpose, an SVM classifier
is designed and trained by using the KWE extracted feature
for texture discrimination. The implementation results of our
method on both agricultural and urban SAR images are given
in Section V. Finally, Section VI draws some conclusions.
II. C UMULANTS AND K URTOSIS VALUE AS A
D EFINITION FOR SAR T EXTURES
In statistics and probability theory, it can be shown that
the cumulant generating function of a random variable X is
expressed by the natural logarithm of the moment generating
function of a random variable X as follows:
 
X () = ln (X ()) = ln EX {ejX } (1)
in which X () is the moment generating function of a random
variable X, EX {.} represents the mathematical expectation of
that random variable, and is the frequency variable of the
Fourier transform. The moment generating function X () is
also given by the Fourier transform of the PDF of the random
variable X as follows:
+
X () = EX {e jX
}= ejx .fX (x) dx. (2)
4360 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2012
From the Fourier transform properties, it is obvious that
the moment generating function takes the same information
regarding the principal random variable as does the PDF. The
natural logarithm function X () defined in (1) is usually
mentioned as the cumulant generating function, and it is widely
used in HOS. The cumulant generating function can be denoted
by the cutoff Taylor series expansion as follows:

n
(j)k
X () = cX (k). (3)
k!
k=1
where cX (k) is the coefficient of the Taylor series and it
is called the kth-order cumulant. It can be shown that the
impression of cumulants gives a specifically powerful means
for characterizing the nature of textures in images as stationary
random series. Thus, it seems that cumulants can be good
features to the description of textures.
It is reported that, whenever the order of cumulant as a
feature for a SAR image increases, this feature will give the
more statistical characteristics of a specific region from a SAR
image [2]. However, implementation of higher order cumulants
will impose more calculations and is time consuming. Thus,
we should perform a tradeoff between the higher order and the
complexity of calculations. In [2], the third-order normalized
cumulant named skewness was proposed to be used as a texture
feature for segmentation of SAR images. In this paper, we
propose to use the fourth-order normalized cumulant named
kurtosis as a texture feature for segmentation step of our
proposed algorithm. We show that this selection gives more
statistical information of each region, and it has also more
efficient implementation than the skewness.
It is feasible to represent the cumulants as functions of
the moments of the random variable under analysis by using
standard differentiation and mathematical identities. Note that
the first-order moment is the mean moment, and the second-
order moment is the central moment. For example, the first four
cumulants as functions of the moments can be expressed by
c(1) = m(1) = M = mean
c(2) = m(2) [m(1)]2 = 2 = covariance
c(3) = m(3) 3m(1) m(2) + 2 [m(1)]3
c(4) = m(4) 3 [m(2)]2 4m(1) m(3)
+ 12 [m(1)]2 m(2) 6 [m(1)]4 (4)
where M and 2 represent the mean and covariance of the
distribution of the related random variables, respectively. In
order to clarify, the subscript X has been eliminated in these
expressions. In most practical applications, the PDF of a ran-
dom variable is unknown, and the cumulants must be computed
from several comprehensions of the random variable.
The first step of our approach is segmenting different textures
in SAR images using the kurtosis value of wavelet coefficients
of texture of each region as a texture feature. The formulation
of third- and fourth-order cumulants c(3) and c(4), given by
(3) and (4), respectively, can be used as such texture feature.
In applications developed for segmentation of SAR images,
a beneficial feature is the feature that it is invariant to image
size [2]. However, the cumulant formulation as described in (4)
is essentially dependent on the size of the generating random
variable and also on the image size. For the purpose of this
paper, we use a normalization of the higher order cumulants
to make them invariant to image size. With this point of view,
it is interesting to consider the normalized third-order and
the normalized fourth-order cumulants with a desired random
variable as defined respectively by
c(3) c(3) c(3)
N C(3) = 3 = 3 = (5)
[c(2)] 2 [ 2 ] 2 3
c(4) c(4)
N C(4) = 2 = 4 . (6)
[c(2)]
Using this definition of cumulant, it directly follows that
this normalized cumulant as a texture feature is image size
invariant for any nonzero size of a SAR image. In (5), N C(3) is
named skewness which is the third-order cumulant normalized
with covariance. In (6), N C(4) is named kurtosis which is
the fourth-order cumulant normalized with covariance. The
skewness cumulant indicates the value of symmetry of the
PDF histogram of a SAR image, and the kurtosis cumulant
represents the sharpness of the PDF histogram of a SAR image.
In other words, the kurtosis as a feature is the slope decreasing
value of the PDF histogram curve of a SAR image.
It can be found that, whenever the order of cumulant as a
feature for a SAR image increases, this feature will give the
more statistical characteristics of a specific region from a SAR
image [2]. However, implementation of higher order cumulants
will impose more calculations and is time consuming. Thus,
we should perform a tradeoff between the higher order and the
complexity of calculations. In [2], the third-order normalized
cumulant named skewness is proposed to be used as a texture
feature for segmentation of SAR images. In this paper, a texture
representation of each region in SAR images with wavelet
transform and kurtosis value concepts is defined. Our goal is to
design and extract an efficient feature for texture segmentation
of SAR images. For this purpose, we first apply a wavelet
transform up to the possible last level on a SAR image, get
the wavelet coefficients, and compute the energy of the resulted
wavelet coefficients. Then, the kurtosis value of the wavelet
coefficient energy is calculated by computing the first four order
moments of the wavelet coefficient energies m(1)m(4) and
the four-order cumulant c(4) and at last applying (6) to get the
value of the kurtosis N C(4).
In order to characterize a texture of each region in a SAR
image by the wavelet coefficient energy, we consider RT (i, j)
as a region texture of a SAR image as follows:

1 
RT (i, j) = WA (y0 , m, n)y0 ,m,n (i, j)
MN m n
 1  
+ Wx (y, m, n)y,m,n
x
(i, j) (7)
x=H,V,D y=y0 m n
where is the scaling function, is the wavelet function, y0 is
the order of the decomposition, WA is approximation wavelet
coefficients, and W , W , and WD represent detail wavelet
H V
coefficients. The WH , WV , and WD wavelet coefficients
AKBARIZADEH: NEW STATISTICAL-BASED KWE FEATURE FOR TEXTURE RECOGNITION 4361

are measured along the different directions as follows: WH

along columns (horizontal direction), WV along rows (vertical
direction), and WD along diagonals.
We have tested several kinds of mother wavelets and several
wavelet coefficients WA , WH , WV , and WD . After exam-
ining the results, we have selected to use the Haar wavelet as
mother wavelet type and the energy of approximation wavelet
coefficients in our proposed method. The energy of the approx-
imation wavelet coefficients in each subband can be obtained
by the following sequence:




WA (y, m, n)
2 , y0 y 1, m, n Z . (8)

Fig. 1. Comparison between the curves of F 1 (kurtosis), F 1 (skewness),

Aujol et al. computed experimentally (see [26]) that the dis- and F 1 (second moment).
tribution of the square of the wavelet coefficients in a subband
of any image (also for SAR images) follows a generalized Now, we can obtain as follows:
Gaussian law of the form  
    (4)
m 7
K y  |W |2
PX 2 (y) = exp (9) =  (3) . (12)
2 y m|W |2 9
y0

where K, , and are the texture parameters. If (t) and N Also, from c(4) and N C(4) defined by (4) and (6), respec-
represent the Gamma function and the total number of pixels of tively, N C(4) can be rewritten as (13), shown at the bottom of
the given SAR image, respectively, then we have the page.
Thus, the formulation of function F (x) = N C(4) is then
obtained by substitution of the first- to fourth-order moments,
N
K= . (10) (1) (2) (3) (4)
namely, m|W |2 , m|W |2 , m|W |2 , and m|W |2 , with their corre-
1 sponding values given in (14), shown at the bottom of the page.
Then, the value of classification parameter is calculated by
To define a texture feature based on kurtosis, we should
(4)
compute the fourth-order moment of the wavelet coefficient C|W |2
(4) = F 1 (kurtosis) = F 1 2 . (15)
energy distribution m|W |2 as follows: (2)
C|W |2
+
 
(4)
m|W |2 = E |W | 8
= (W )8 h(W )d(W ) The curve of F 1 (kurtosis) is shown in Fig. 1. As shown in
Fig. 1, the curve of F 1 (kurtosis) is approximately stable over
0
 a wide range of kurtosis. In order to do a comparison between
9
K 9 the three methods, second moment, skewness, and kurtosis, we
= . (11)
have depicted the figure of these methods in one plot as shown

2 2 4
(4) (2) (1) (3) (1) (2) (1)
C|W |2
(4)
m|W |2 3 m|W |2 + 4m|W |2 m|W |2 + 12 m|W |2 m|W |2 6 m|W |2
N C(4) = = (13)
( 2 )4/2 4

      
3N 4N
1 9 2 1 2 5 2 1 3 7
3
F (x) =   2
N 1 5 N 2 3
   
12 N 2 1 2 3 5 6 N 3 4 3
+q   2 (14)
N 1 5 N 2 3
4362 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2012
Fig. 2. Defined segmentation problem.
in Fig. 1. As shown in Fig. 1, the curve of F 1 (kurtosis) is
more stable than the F 1 (skewness) and F 1 (second moment)
which were proposed in [2] and [26], respectively. The curve
of F 1 (kurtosis) is approximately stable over a wide range of
kurtosis. From Fig. 1, as it is expected, the value of is about
0.25 in all the ranges of kurtosis. Thus, if kurtosis is selected
as a texture feature for SAR image segmentation, it will be
an efficient feature because of its stability. As it is expected,
the kurtosis feature extracts more statistical information due
to its HOS. This is exactly the same thing that is required
to face with texture regions in SAR images. Thus, a texture
discrimination of each region in SAR images can be done by
the KWE explained in this section. In the next section, we
apply this feature in a level set function and develop it for
segmentation of each region in SAR images.
III. C OMPUTING THE L EVEL S ET F ORMULATION
W ITH KWE E NERGY T ERM
In the previous section, we described a new texture feature
extraction method for texture segmentation in SAR images.
In this section, we apply this feature in a level set function
and develop it for segmentation of each region texture in
SAR images.
Suppose that r is an open subset of R2 , K is the number
In the distributional sense, when 0, we have H H.
Lk (x) is introduced as level set function. If Lk (x) is calculated
for any point x and we get the sign of Lk (x), we can determine
if x is in the region rk or not. For example, if Lk (x) > 0, then
H(Lk (x)) = 1; thus, x k. Let x r be an arbitrary pixel and
I(x) : r R1 be a given vector of SAR image, where 1 is
the dimension of the vector I(x). Dimension of SAR images
corresponds to the dimension of gray-level images. We define
the following function:
F KWE (L1 , L2 , . . . , LK , f1 , f2 )
= KWEx (L1 , L2 , . . . , LK , f1 , f2 ) + (L) (18)
where is a positive constant, KWE
x is the KWE, f 1 and f 2 are
the functions that minimize the KWE
x , and (L) is the deviation
of the level set function L from a signed distance function. The
kurtosis value of the wavelet coefficient energy is proposed to
be used as contour energy KWEp in (18).
Now, for a given pixel x r, the KWE KW p
E
is followed
by the distribution form of the kurtosis energy of the wavelet
coefficients in a subband of each region. For each point x r,
the KWE energy proposed in this paper is
KWE (C, k1 (x), k2 (x))
x 
= 1 K(xy)|I(y)k1 (x)|2 dy
inside contour(C)

= 2 K(xy)|I(y)k2 (x)|2 dy (19)
outside contour(C)
where C is a contour in the image region r, 1 and 2 are
two constant numbers, K is a kernel function with a kurtosis
property, and k1 (x) and k2 (x) are two functions that fit image
textures near the pixel x. We call the pixel x the center point of
the aforementioned equation, and we call the aforementioned
energy the KWE around the center point x. A benefit kernel
function K(x) should be computed and used in the KWE
energy function derived in (19). We propose to use the kernel
function K(x) as the PDF. Thus, we have
of segmented regions (number of rk ), k is a parameter that 
 

shows the region index, x is a pixel of region, Rkl is the K x
K|W |2 (x) = exp (20)
interface between region rk and region rl , and the image is a 2 x
function considered as I : r R. We define the region Rek =
{x r|x belongs to the region k}. This defined segmentation where the constant parameter K is obtained by (10) and the
problem is shown in Fig. 2. segment parameters and are given by (12) and (15),
We denote that, for all k = 1, . . . , K, Rek is an open set rk respectively.
given by a Lipschitz function Lk : r R so that
IV. R ECOGNITION OF S EGMENTED T EXTURES IN
Lk (x) > 0 if x rk
SAR I MAGES W ITH SVM C LASSIFIER
Lk (x) = 0 if x Rk (16)

Lk (x) < 0 if otherwise The classifier plays an important role in image classification
and recognition. After the segmentation of textures in SAR
where Rk is the boundary of rk and Lk is the signed distance images is done, the classification of each texture in SAR image
function to Rk . We can determine rk using the sign of Lk should be achieved by using an efficient classifier and suitable
and the Heaviside distribution function H. This function is texture features. The theory of support vector machine (SVM),
approximated by as a tool of pattern classification and recognition, is based on
1  statistical learning theory and the principle of structural risk
2 1+
+ 1 sin
if || minimization.
H () = 1 if > (17) SVMs are a set of affiliated supervised learning methods

0 if < . which analyze data and recognize patterns. SVM is used for
AKBARIZADEH: NEW STATISTICAL-BASED KWE FEATURE FOR TEXTURE RECOGNITION 4363

statistical classification and regression analysis. Suppose that,

in a set of training examples, each example is marked as
belonging to one of two categories. An SVM training algorithm
initiates a model that predicts whether a new example drops
within one category or the other.
An SVM creates a hyperplane or a set of hyperplanes in
a high or infinite dimensional space which can be used for
classification, recognition, or other tasks. Intuitively, a good
clustering is achieved by the hyperplane which has the largest
distance to the nearest training data points of any class. This
nearest data point is also called functional margin. In general,
the larger margin leads to the lower generalization error of the
classifier. The SVM classifier belongs to a family of generalized
linear classifiers, but there are some ways to create nonlinear
SVM classifier by applying the kernel trick to maximum margin
hyperplane. A linear SVM uses a systematic approach to find a
linear function with the lowest vapnikchervonenis dimension.
For nonlinear separable data, the SVM can map the input to a
high-dimensional feature space where a linear hyperplane can
be found. Thus, a good generalization can be attained by the
SVM compared to traditional classifiers.
The kernel function in a linear SVM is just a simple dot
product in the input space. However, for a nonlinear SVM,
the training data can be mapped to a feature space of higher
dimension via a nonlinear projecting function. Since our clas-
sification problem is a nonlinear form, hence, the optimal
decision function can be considered as
m 

f (x) = sgn ai yi K(x, xi ) + b (21)
i=1

where K(x, xi ) is the kernel function.

In the SVM classifier, the kernel function plays the important
role of mapping the input samples into a feature space. At the
present time, there is not any technique available to discover
the structure of kernels. Typical choices of kernel function are
the linear kernels, polynomial kernels, and Gaussian RBF ker-
nels in SVM research. They are defined as follows:
1) Linear kernels
K(x, xi ) = x xi . (22)
2) Homogeneous polynomial kernels
K(xi , xj ) = (xi xj )d . (23)
3) Inhomogeneous polynomial kernels
K(xi , xj ) = (xi xj + 1)d . (24)
4) Gaussian RBF kernels

xi xj 2
K(xi , xj ) = exp . (25)
2 2
We use the RBF kernels as the kernel function and the
artificial choice method to obtain the samples in our proposed
method for classification of segmented textures in SAR images.
After the original SAR image was filtered by wavelet trans-
form, the energy values of wavelet coefficients, the kurtosis
value of wavelet coefficient energy, and gray values of eight
neighborhood of that will be computed. These computed values
Fig. 3. (a) Three-look simulated SAR image (256 256). (b) Ground truth.
(c) Segmentation obtained by LBF model (error rate: 4.68%; the number of
missegmented pixels: 3070). (d) Segmentation obtained by SWE model (error
rate: 3.33%; the number of missegmented pixels: 2185). (e) Segmentation
obtained by KWE (error rate: 1.46%; the number of missegmented pixels: 954).
compose the feature vector of samples. Then, segmentation of
textures is applied by using feature vector and level set function
proposed in Section III. At last, an SVM classifier is designed
and trained by using normalized feature vectors of each region
texture, and the testing sets of SAR image are divided by the
trained SVM. According to the classification results, the gray
value whose category is +1 was set at 255, and the gray value
whose category is 1 was set at 0. Thus, the segmentation of
SAR image is realized.
V. I MPLEMENTATION AND T EST R ESULTS
To elucidate the relative advantages of the KWE with respect
to local binary fitting (LBF) and SWE, the results of different
algorithms on simulated and real SAR images are presented.
A. Segmentation of Simulated SAR Image
In order to evaluate the performance of the proposed method
objectively, we first show an experiment on a simulated
4364 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2012

Fig. 5. SVM classifier with an RBF kernel which is trained by using the
texture features of two different textures of the original Washington, D.C.,
SAR image.

Fig. 4. (a) X-SAR image of Washington, D.C. (512 512). (b) Aerial optical
photograph of the same region as the one of the SAR image (adopted by
Google Earth). (c) Representation of the approximation wavelet coefficient
energy |W A |2 from levels 1 to 9 of the Washington, D.C., SAR image.

three-look SAR image. The generation procedure of the sim-

ulated SAR image was inspired by radar image formation
phenomena. This is done by averaging three gamma-distributed
realizations. The corresponding three-look noisy image, as
shown in Fig. 3(a), is generated by averaging three independent
realizations of speckle. The ground truth image, as shown in
Fig. 3(b), is used to calculate the error rates of the segmenta-
tions obtained by different algorithms.
Three algorithms are used for segmentation respectively:
1) the LBF model; 2) SWE; and 3) KWE. Fig. 3(c) shows
the segmentation result with the LBF model. Fig. 3(d) shows Fig. 6. Test stage of the trained SVM classifier. Two different texture data sets
the segmentation result of SWE, which is better than the LBF of feature vectors of Washington, D.C., SAR image is applied to the classifier,
model. Fig. 3(e) shows the best segmentation result according and the clustered data are classified in two different classes with violet and blue
to the error rate. We found that the overall error rates are colors.
reduced from 4.68% to 3.33% by using SWE and to 1.46%
In this section, in order to verify the effect of the proposed
by using KWE. Therefore, SWE is better than LBF, and KWE
method, experiments on both agricultural and urban SAR im-
outperforms the SWE.
ages are performed.
Visually, the segmentation of the LBF, which is shown in
Fig. 4(a) shows an original SAR image. It is a National
Fig. 3(c), is seriously spotty in consistent regions. Many pixels
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Goddard Space
in two segments are confused. SWE performs better than the
Flight Center image with 15-m resolution of Washington, D.C.,
LBF, as shown in Fig. 3(d). Therefore, SWE is more robust to
acquired by LANDSAT 7 on May 9, 2005. This image is an
the noise than the LBF. In the result, the missegmented pixels
urban X-band SAR image whose size is 512 512. Fig. 4(b)
mainly locate in the white regions of Fig. 3(a), and the black
shows an aerial optical photograph of the same region of
regions in Fig. 3(a) are well segmented. Compared with SWE,
the SAR image shown in Fig. 4(a). In order to extract the
KWE reduces the number of the missegmented pixels, as shown
texture features in different regions of SAR image, the wavelet
in Fig. 3(e).
transform is first applied to the image to get the approximation
wavelet coefficients WA . Then, the values of the energy of the
wavelet coefficients are computed by means of the expression
B. Segmentation of Real SAR Images
obtained in (8). Note that, in order to extract all of the wavelet
When we deal with real SAR image segmentation, the coefficients, the wavelet decompositions of the maximum
ground truth corresponding to the SAR images being seg- level L have been used to compute all of the approximation
mented is absent generally. In this case, the evaluation of wavelet coefficients WA and then, the first-, second-, third-,
the segmentation result is based on visual inspection of the and fourth-order moments of the energy distribution of these
segmented images. wavelet coefficients are calculated. For example, in SAR image,
AKBARIZADEH: NEW STATISTICAL-BASED KWE FEATURE FOR TEXTURE RECOGNITION 4365

Fig. 7. (a) Segmentation obtained by the LBF. (b) Segmentation obtained by SWE. (c) Segmentation obtained by the proposed KWE. (d) [respectively, (e) and
(f)] Zoom of an area extracted from (a) [respectively, (b) and (c)]. (g) Zoom of the same area extracted from Fig. 5(b).

as shown in Fig. 4(a), L = 9 (because 512 = 29 ). Fig. 4(c)
shows the image representation of the approximation wavelet
2 used as initial contour), time step = 0.1, = 1.0, and center
coefficient energy |WA | from levels 1 to 9 of the Washington,
D.C., SAR image.
Now, we can extract the KWE feature from the approxima-
tion wavelet coefficient energy shown in Fig. 4(c) for X-SAR
image of the Washington, D.C. The value of the kurtosis of
the approximation wavelet coefficient energy shown in Fig. 4(c)
is 6.514 1012 . It is obtained by (13). Now, we can get
= 0.2598 from the extended curve of Fig. 1 in the range
[0, 12 1012 ] of only the kurtosis axis in detail.
Also, we calculated = 0.2552 and K = 2.1436 105
from (12) and (10), respectively. Note that the classification
parameters , , and K are different for each SAR image.
After extracting the texture feature, segmentation and classi-
fication algorithm of each texture should be carried out on SAR
image with these extracted texture features. To implement our
level set function with KWE texture feature, the parameters in
the experimentation are supposed as follows: 1 = 1.0, 2 =
1.0, = 0.004 2552 , c0 = 2 (constant value of step function
point p = 1.0. Also, an SVM classifier is designed and trained
by using the normalized feature vector. In Fig. 5, an SVM
classifier with an RBF kernel is designed and trained by using
the feature vector of two different textures of the Washington,
D.C., SAR image.
As shown in Fig. 5, the SVM classifier is trained with two
sets of feature vector. One, which is defined with +, is labeled
with 1 and red color, and the other, which is defined with ,
is labeled with 2 and green color. The class 1 is composed
of the texture features of water regions, and the class 2 is
composed of the texture features of vegetation regions of the
Washington, D.C., SAR image. This trained SVM classifier
is determined by a line which is obtained based on SVM
principles and the nearest trained data which are labeled as
support vectors.
4366 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON GEOSCIENCE AND REMOTE SENSING, VOL. 50, NO. 11, NOVEMBER 2012
After training with the proposed KWE feature subspace,
the SVM classifier is used to recognize the texture classes
of watervegetation subblocks of the input SAR image. For
this purpose, another data set is used to test the trained SVM
classifier. The test stage of the SVM classifier with two different
texture data sets is shown in Fig. 6.
In Fig. 6, two different feature vectors of two different
textures of the Washington, D.C., SAR image are applied to
the classifier. The first cluster is the feature vectors of the texture
of water regions which is classified in the first class. This class
is labeled as 1(classified) with violet color, and it is specified
with + signs. The second cluster of data sets is the feature
vectors of the vegetation regions of the Washington, D.C.,
SAR image which is labeled as 2(classified) with blue color,
and it is specified with signs.
In the same way, the proposed SVM classifier can be
trained by the texture features of the building regions of the
Washington, D.C., SAR image. Now, we can use this SVM
classifier for segmentation and classification of different tex-
tures of SAR images. In order to examine the capability of the
proposed method in this paper, two traditional methods such as
SWE [2] and LBF [18] are selected to have some comparisons.
The Washington, D.C., SAR image as shown in Fig. 4(a)
is used first to segmentation and classification operation. The
experimental results of LBF model as a pixel-intensity-based
method are shown in Fig. 7(a). The experimental results of
SWE model as a segmentation method based on skewness
wavelet energy is shown in Fig. 7(b). The results of the pro-
posed method are shown in Fig. 7(c). The magnified versions
of the same selected area are shown in Fig. 7(d)(g).
The images, as shown in Fig. 7, consist of three types of
land cover: water, vegetation, and building. The water area is
marked as region A, the vegetation area is marked as region B,
and the building area is marked as region C in the results.
These images are urban SAR images. The segmentation ob-
tained by the LBF model is shown in Fig. 7(a). One can see
that the water area (lower left) is incorrectly segmented. In
other words, the LBF model has failed while facing particular
regions such as water. Furthermore, the boundary between the
vegetation [region B in Fig. 7(d)] and the building [region C in
Fig. 7(d)] is not correctly defined. The segmentation obtained
by SWE, as shown in Fig. 7(b), improves the uniformity in
the water region. However, there is serious missegmentation
in the vegetation region [see the magnified image of a se-
lected area in Fig. 7(e)]. Furthermore, both LBF and SWE
models need an initial contour created by the user. KWE
gets the best segmentation and classification result, as shown
in Fig. 7(c).
The classification operation, obtained by KWE, improves the
uniformity in the water region, and a local region of the region B
[part of region B located in region C in Fig. 7(f)] is consistently
recognized as vegetation. Three types of land cover in Fig. 7
are consistently identified as corresponding regions by using
the KWE classification algorithm. Moreover, the boundaries
of particular regions are well determined by KWE. Also, the
proposed KWE classification algorithm does not need an initial
contour selected by the user. Thus, the KWE can be utilized in
automatic processes.
Another experiment is carried out on an agricultural SAR
image in Fig. 8(a). This SAR image is a multilook C-band SAR
Fig. 8. (a) C-SAR image of a rice-growing area near Okayama, Japan,
obtained by JPL AirSAR (1024 1024). (b) Aerial optical photograph of
the same region as the one of the SAR image (adopted by Google map).
A |2
(c) Representation of the approximation wavelet coefficient energy |W
from levels 1 to 10 of the rice-growing SAR image.
image of a rice-growing area near Okayama, Japan, obtained
by NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory AirSAR. This image is
already multilooked nine times in azimuth to give a pixel spac-
ing of approximately 4.6 m in azimuth and 3.3 m in range [25].
This image is an agricultural C-SAR image whose size is
1024 1024. Fig. 8(b) shows an aerial optical photograph of
the same region as the one of the SAR image. The approxi-
2
mation wavelet coefficient energy |WA | from levels 1 to 10
of the rice-growing SAR image is also shown in Fig. 8(c).
This image consists of five types of land cover: water, urban,
vegetation, rice, and wheat.
The segmentation obtained by the LBF method is shown in
Fig. 9(a), and a zoom of an area extracted from this figure
is shown in Fig. 9(d). The water area on the down left is
segmented badly, and one can see that two water local regions
in the rice area [see the down middle image in Fig. 9(d)] are
mistakenly segmented with the vegetation, and a big part of the
rice area is mistakenly segmented with the wheat area.
Therefore, the LBF model is not effective for segmentation
of this image. SWE improves the segmentation result to some
degree, as shown in Fig. 9(b). The magnified version of this
image for the same area is shown in Fig. 9(e). The uniformity in
the water area is improved, and the vegetation area is identified
as well. However, the rice area is segmented badly, and the
urban area is not identified. The segmentation and classification
of the proposed KWE shows an effective classification result
in comparison with those of the LBF and SWE, as shown in
Fig. 9(c). The uniformity in the rice area and the water area is
improved, and the urban area and the wheat area are identified
as well [see the magnified image as shown in Fig. 9(f)].
VI. C ONCLUSION
We have developed a new segmentation and classification
algorithm based on kurtosis value of wavelet coefficient energy
for segmentation of each region and recognition of each texture
AKBARIZADEH: NEW STATISTICAL-BASED KWE FEATURE FOR TEXTURE RECOGNITION
Fig. 9. (a) Segmentation obtained by the LBF. (b) Segmentation obtained by SWE. (c) Segmentation and classification obtained by the proposed KWE.
(d) [respectively, (e) and (f)] Zoom of an area extracted from (a) [respectively, (b) and (c)]. (g) Zoom of the same area extracted from Fig. 9(b).
of SAR images. A new energy named KWE is proposed to
be used as a feature for texture discrimination of each region.
In comparison with the LBF segmentation model, the KWE
achieves better performance on the SAR images. It also per-
forms better than the SWE in often cases because it extracts
more statistical information of textures due to its higher order
of cumulant. Furthermore, the KWE algorithm, proposed in this
paper, avoids the selection of the initial contour by the user.
Thus, the KWE algorithm can be used in automatic processes.
Experimental results show that the proposed method is more
efficient for accurate segmentation and classification of several
kinds of SAR images.
VII. F UTURE W ORK
In this paper, we have considered the kurtosis of the energy
as the texture feature. The kurtosis is linked with the Fourier
transform which is defined in R, but the energy is always a
positive variable. A more appropriate transform to represent
4367
the energy will be the Mellin transform. In this case, the log
cumulants are considered instead of classical moments. Thus,
second kind statistics and the Mellin transform offer a better
adapted formalism for positive random variables which could
be a suitable topic for future work. Also, the reader can study
the estimation methods such as Fisher information matrix and
the CramerRao bound to extract good features from SAR
images in order to reach a better segmentation result.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The author would like to thank the Shahid Chamran Univer-
sity of Ahvaz for financial support.
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Gholamreza Akbarizadeh was born in Shiraz, Iran,
on July 14, 1981. He received the B.S. degree from
the Khajeh-Nassir Tousi University of Technology
(KNTU), Tehran, Iran, in 2003 and the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees from the Iran University of Science
and Technology, Tehran, in 2005 and 2011, respec-
tively, all in electrical and electronics engineering.
From 2003 to 2011, he has worked at the DSP
R&D research laboratory as a Senior Researcher. He
is currently an Assistant Professor and Faculty Mem-
ber of the Engineering Department, Shahid Chamran
University of Ahvaz, Ahvaz, Iran. He has more than 20 published papers
in different international electrical engineering conferences and journals. His
research interests in pattern recognition, machine vision, image processing, and
remote sensing analysis.
Dr. Akbarizadeh is member of some international scientific societies such as
Iranian Machine Vision and Image Processing (MVIP).