Computing harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds

In [GLM18], we showed that the theory of harmonic maps between Riemannian manifolds may be discretized by introducing triangulations with vertex and edge weights on the domain manifold. In the present paper, we study convergence of the discrete theory to the smooth theory when taking finer and finer triangulations. We present suitable conditions on the weighted triangulations that ensure convergence of discrete harmonic maps to smooth harmonic maps. Our computer software Harmony implements these methods to computes equivariant harmonic maps in the hyperbolic plane

Optimal a priori discretization error bounds for geodesic finite elements

We prove optimal bounds for the discretization error of geodesic finite elements for variational partial differential equations for functions that map into a nonlinear space. For this, we first generalize the well-known Céa lemma to nonlinear function spaces. In a second step, we prove optimal interpolation error estimates for pointwise interpolation by geodesic finite elements of arbitrary order. These two results are both of independent interest. Together they yield optimal a priori error estimates for a large class of manifold-valued variational problems. We measure the discretization error both intrinsically using an H1-type Finsler norm and with the H1-norm using embeddings of the codomain in a linear space. To measure the regularity of the solution, we propose a nonstandard smoothness descriptor for manifold-valued functions, which bounds additional terms not captured by Sobolev norms. As an application, we obtain optimal a priori error estimates for discretizations of smooth harmonic maps using geodesic finite elements, yielding the first high-order scheme for this problem

Total variation regularization for manifold-valued data

We consider total variation minimization for manifold valued data. We propose a cyclic proximal point algorithm and a parallel proximal point algorithm to minimize TV functionals with $\ell^p$-type data terms in the manifold case. These algorithms are based on iterative geodesic averaging which makes them easily applicable to a large class of data manifolds. As an application, we consider denoising images which take their values in a manifold. We apply our algorithms to diffusion tensor images, interferometric SAR images as well as sphere and cylinder valued images. For the class of Cartan-Hadamard manifolds (which includes the data space in diffusion tensor imaging) we show the convergence of the proposed TV minimizing algorithms to a global minimizer

Mumford-Shah and Potts Regularization for Manifold-Valued Data with Applications to DTI and Q-Ball Imaging

Mumford-Shah and Potts functionals are powerful variational models for regularization which are widely used in signal and image processing; typical applications are edge-preserving denoising and segmentation. Being both non-smooth and non-convex, they are computationally challenging even for scalar data. For manifold-valued data, the problem becomes even more involved since typical features of vector spaces are not available. In this paper, we propose algorithms for Mumford-Shah and for Potts regularization of manifold-valued signals and images. For the univariate problems, we derive solvers based on dynamic programming combined with (convex) optimization techniques for manifold-valued data. For the class of Cartan-Hadamard manifolds (which includes the data space in diffusion tensor imaging), we show that our algorithms compute global minimizers for any starting point. For the multivariate Mumford-Shah and Potts problems (for image regularization) we propose a splitting into suitable subproblems which we can solve exactly using the techniques developed for the corresponding univariate problems. Our method does not require any a priori restrictions on the edge set and we do not have to discretize the data space. We apply our method to diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) as well as Q-ball imaging. Using the DTI model, we obtain a segmentation of the corpus callosum

MEANS AND AVERAGING ON RIEMANNIAN MANIFOLDS

Processing of manifold-valued data has received considerable attention in recent years. Standard data processing methods are not adequate for such data. Among many related data processing tasks finding means or averages of manifold-valued data is a basic and important one. Although means on Riemannian manifolds have a long history, there are still many unanswered theoretical questions about them, some of which we try to answer. We focus on two classes of means: the Riemannian $L^{p}$ mean and the recursive-iterative means. The Riemannian $L^{p}$ mean is defined as the solution(s) of a minimization problem, while the recursive-iterative means are defined based on the notion of Mean-Invariance (MI) in a recursive and iterative process. We give a new existence and uniqueness result for the Riemannian $L^{p}$ mean. The significant consequence is that it shows the local and global definitions of the Riemannian $L^{p}$ mean coincide under an uncompromised condition which guarantees the uniqueness of the local mean. We also study smoothness, isometry compatibility, convexity and noise sensitivity properties of the $L^{p}$ mean. In particular, we argue that positive sectional curvature of a manifold can cause high sensitivity to noise for the $L^{2}$ mean which might lead to a non-averaging behavior of that mean. We show that the $L^{2}$ mean on a manifold of positive curvature can have an averaging property in a weak sense. We introduce the notion of MI, and study a large class of recursive-iterative means. MI means are related to an interesting class of dynamical systems that can find Riemannian convex combinations. A special class of the MI means called pairwise mean, which through an iterative scheme called Perimeter Shrinkage is related to cyclic pursuit on manifolds, is also studied. Finally, we derive results specific to the special orthogonal group and the Grassmannian manifold, as these manifolds appear naturally in many applications. We distinguish the $2$-norm Finsler balls of appropriate radius in these manifolds as domains for existence and uniqueness of the studied means. We also introduce some efficient numerical methods to perform the related calculations in the specified manifolds

Courbure discrète : théorie et applications

International audienceThe present volume contains the proceedings of the 2013 Meeting on discrete curvature, held at CIRM, Luminy, France. The aim of this meeting was to bring together researchers from various backgrounds, ranging from mathematics to computer science, with a focus on both theory and applications. With 27 invited talks and 8 posters, the conference attracted 70 researchers from all over the world. The challenge of finding a common ground on the topic of discrete curvature was met with success, and these proceedings are a testimony of this wor