10,779 research outputs found
Assistance strategies for robotized laparoscopy
Robotizing laparoscopic surgery not only allows achieving better
accuracy to operate when a scale factor is applied between master and slave or thanks to the use of tools with 3 DoF, which cannot be used in conventional manual surgery, but also due to additional informatic support. Relying on computer assistance different strategies that facilitate the task of the surgeon can be incorporated, either in the form of autonomous navigation or cooperative guidance, providing sensory or visual feedback, or introducing certain limitations of movements. This paper describes different ways of assistance aimed at improving the work capacity of the surgeon and achieving more safety for the patient, and the results obtained with the prototype developed at UPC.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft
Remote sensing applications in forestry - The development of an earth resources information system using aerial photographs and digital computers Annual progress report
Earth resources information system using aerial photographs and digital computer
A Variational Stereo Method for the Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of Ocean Waves
We develop a novel remote sensing technique for the observation of waves on the ocean surface. Our method infers the 3-D waveform and radiance of oceanic sea states via a variational stereo imagery formulation. In this setting, the shape and radiance of the wave surface are given by minimizers of a composite energy functional that combines a photometric matching term along with regularization terms involving the smoothness of the unknowns. The desired ocean surface shape and radiance are the solution of a system of coupled partial differential equations derived from the optimality conditions of the energy functional. The proposed method is naturally extended to study the spatiotemporal dynamics of ocean waves and applied to three sets of stereo video data. Statistical and spectral analysis are carried out. Our results provide evidence that the observed omnidirectional wavenumber spectrum S(k) decays as k-2.5 is in agreement with Zakharov's theory (1999). Furthermore, the 3-D spectrum of the reconstructed wave surface is exploited to estimate wave dispersion and currents
A surgical system for automatic registration, stiffness mapping and dynamic image overlay
In this paper we develop a surgical system using the da Vinci research kit
(dVRK) that is capable of autonomously searching for tumors and dynamically
displaying the tumor location using augmented reality. Such a system has the
potential to quickly reveal the location and shape of tumors and visually
overlay that information to reduce the cognitive overload of the surgeon. We
believe that our approach is one of the first to incorporate state-of-the-art
methods in registration, force sensing and tumor localization into a unified
surgical system. First, the preoperative model is registered to the
intra-operative scene using a Bingham distribution-based filtering approach. An
active level set estimation is then used to find the location and the shape of
the tumors. We use a recently developed miniature force sensor to perform the
palpation. The estimated stiffness map is then dynamically overlaid onto the
registered preoperative model of the organ. We demonstrate the efficacy of our
system by performing experiments on phantom prostate models with embedded stiff
inclusions.Comment: International Symposium on Medical Robotics (ISMR 2018
Site Characterization Using Integrated Imaging Analysis Methods on Satellite Data of the Islamabad, Pakistan, Region
We develop an integrated digital imaging analysis approach to produce a first-approximation site characterization map for Islamabad, Pakistan, based on remote-sensing data. We apply both pixel-based and object-oriented digital imaging analysis methods to characterize detailed (1:50,000) geomorphology and geology from Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) satellite imagery. We use stereo-correlated relative digital elevation models (rDEMs) derived from ASTER data, as well as spectra in the visible near-infrared (VNIR) to thermal infrared (TIR) domains. The resulting geomorphic units in the study area are classified as mountain (including the Margala Hills and the Khairi Murat Ridge), piedmont, and basin terrain units. The local geologic units are classified as limestone in the Margala Hills and the Khairi Murat Ridge and sandstone rock types for the piedmonts and basins. Shear-wave velocities for these units are assigned in ranges based on established correlations in California. These ranges include Vs30-values to be greater than 500 m/sec for mountain units, 200–600 m/sec for piedmont units, and less than 300 m/sec for basin units. While the resulting map provides the basis for incorporating site response in an assessment of seismic hazard for Islamabad, it also demonstrates the potential use of remote-sensing data for site characterization in regions where only limited conventional mapping has been done
Learning sparse representations of depth
This paper introduces a new method for learning and inferring sparse
representations of depth (disparity) maps. The proposed algorithm relaxes the
usual assumption of the stationary noise model in sparse coding. This enables
learning from data corrupted with spatially varying noise or uncertainty,
typically obtained by laser range scanners or structured light depth cameras.
Sparse representations are learned from the Middlebury database disparity maps
and then exploited in a two-layer graphical model for inferring depth from
stereo, by including a sparsity prior on the learned features. Since they
capture higher-order dependencies in the depth structure, these priors can
complement smoothness priors commonly used in depth inference based on Markov
Random Field (MRF) models. Inference on the proposed graph is achieved using an
alternating iterative optimization technique, where the first layer is solved
using an existing MRF-based stereo matching algorithm, then held fixed as the
second layer is solved using the proposed non-stationary sparse coding
algorithm. This leads to a general method for improving solutions of state of
the art MRF-based depth estimation algorithms. Our experimental results first
show that depth inference using learned representations leads to state of the
art denoising of depth maps obtained from laser range scanners and a time of
flight camera. Furthermore, we show that adding sparse priors improves the
results of two depth estimation methods: the classical graph cut algorithm by
Boykov et al. and the more recent algorithm of Woodford et al.Comment: 12 page
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