  This paper addresses the problem of estimating the Potts parameter B jointly
with the unknown parameters of a Bayesian model within a Markov chain Monte
Carlo (MCMC) algorithm. Standard MCMC methods cannot be applied to this problem
because performing inference on B requires computing the intractable
normalizing constant of the Potts model. In the proposed MCMC method the
estimation of B is conducted using a likelihood-free Metropolis-Hastings
algorithm. Experimental results obtained for synthetic data show that
estimating B jointly with the other unknown parameters leads to estimation
results that are as good as those obtained with the actual value of B. On the
other hand, assuming that the value of B is known can degrade estimation
performance significantly if this value is incorrect. To illustrate the
interest of this method, the proposed algorithm is successfully applied to real
bidimensional SAR and tridimensional ultrasound images.
