Improved VHR urban area mapping exploiting object boundaries

In this paper, a mapping procedure exploiting object boundaries in very high-resolution (VHR) images is proposed. After discrimination between boundary and nonboundary pixel sets, each of the two sets is separately classified. The former are labeled using a neural network (NN), and the shape of the pixel set is finely tuned by enforcing a few geometrical constraints, while the latter are classified using an adaptive Markov random field (MRF) model. The two mapping outputs are finally combined through a decision fusion process. Experimental results on hyperspectral and satellite VHR imagery show the superior performance of this method over conventional NN and MRF classifiers.