Active Contours Using Finite Elements to Control Local Scale

Finite elements allow smoothness to be enforced on the measurement of the image-dependent term in active contours. This improves the stability of the solution, with less computational cost than is incurred by increasing the number of elements. Performance is best when the size of the element matches the scale of the image detail sought. This property of Finite elements can be used deliberately to select the scale of the image detail recovered by the active contour. The method offers a way to reduce the sensitivity of active contours to localised noise.