The ImageSnake operation creates or modifies an active contour/snake in a grayscale image. The operation iterates to minimize the snake's energy which consists of multiple components including the length of the snake, its curvature, image gradient, etc.

ImageSnake is not an efficient solution for edge detection. While it can be used to delineate objects, there are more efficient methods for detecting boundaries.

In this example a snake encircles a "blob". Note that the snake does not follow boundaries consistent with either intensity levels or gradients.