Snake : Active Contour

by Dirk-Jan Kroon 08 Jul 2010 (Updated 08 Nov 2011)

Snake Segmentation (Kass et al), 2D/3D including GVF and balloon force (Easy to read code)

These functions implements the basic snake segmentation contour, as introduced by Kass et al.

Algorithm:

A snake is an active (moving) contour, in which the points are attracted by edges and other image boundaries. To keep the contour smooth, a membrane and thin plate energy is used as contour regularization.

Implementation:

All code is well commented, and is probably easy readable. It includes,

• A balloon force, which is not in the original paper
• Binary image segmentation result,
• The "Gradient Vector Flow" (GVF) method.
• 3D implementation, including parameter to keep the mesh from self-intersecting

Try the example in the help of function Snake.m !

Literature:

• Michael Kass, Andrew Witkin and Demetri TerzoPoulos "Snakes Active Contour Models", 1987
• Jim Invins and John Porril, "Everything you always wanted to know about snakes (but were afraid to ask)
• Chenyang Xu and Jerry L. Prince, "Gradient Vector Flow: A New external force for Snakes
• Christoph Lurig, Leif Kobbelt, Thomas Ertl, "Hierachical solutions for the Deformable Surface Problem in Visualization"

Please report bugs, successes and other comments