Toward evaluating multiscale segmentations of high spatial resolution remote sensing images

Object-based analysis of high spatial resolution remote sensing images addresses the matter of multiscale segmentation. However, existing segmentation evaluation methods mainly focus on single-scale segmentation. In this paper, we examine the issue of supervised multiscale segmentation evaluation and propose two discrepancy measures to determine the manner in which geographic objects are delineated by multiscale segmentations. A QuickBird scene in Hangzhou, China, is used to conduct the evaluation. The results reveal the effectiveness of the proposed measures, in terms of method comparison and parameter optimization, for multiscale segmentation of high spatial resolution images. Moreover, meaningful indications for selecting suitable multiple segmentation scales are presented. The proposed measures are applicable to performance evaluation and parameter optimization for multiscale segmentation algorithms.