7,443 research outputs found
Reconstructing vectorised photographic images
We address the problem of representing captured images in the continuous mathematical space more usually associated with certain forms of drawn ('vector') images. Such an image is resolution-independent so can be used as a master for varying resolution-specific formats. We briefly describe the main features of a vectorising codec for photographic images, whose significance is that drawing programs can access images and image components as first-class vector objects. This paper focuses on the problem of rendering from the isochromic contour form of a vectorised image and demonstrates a new fill algorithm which could also be used in drawing generally. The fill method is described in terms of level set diffusion equations for clarity. Finally we show that image warping is both simplified and enhanced in this form and that we can demonstrate real histogram equalisation with genuinely rectangular histograms
Robust semi-automated path extraction for visualising stenosis of the coronary arteries
Computed tomography angiography (CTA) is useful for diagnosing and planning treatment of heart disease. However, contrast agent in surrounding structures (such as the aorta and left ventricle) makes 3-D visualisation of the coronary arteries difficult. This paper presents a composite method employing segmentation and volume rendering to overcome this issue. A key contribution is a novel Fast Marching minimal path cost function for vessel centreline extraction. The resultant centreline is used to compute a measure of vessel lumen, which indicates the degree of stenosis (narrowing of a vessel). Two volume visualisation techniques are presented which utilise the segmented arteries and lumen measure. The system is evaluated and demonstrated using synthetic and clinically obtained datasets
Stent implant follow-up in intravascular optical coherence tomography images
The objectives of this article are (i) to
utilize computer methods in detection of stent struts
imaged in vivo by optical coherence tomography
(OCT) during percutaneous coronary interventions
(PCI); (ii) to provide measurements for the assessment
and monitoring of in-stent restenosis by OCT post PCI.
Thirty-nine OCT cross-sections from seven pullbacks
from seven patients presenting varying degrees of
neointimal hyperplasia (NIH) are selected, and stent
struts are detected. Stent and lumen boundaries are
reconstructed and one experienced observer analyzed
the strut detection, the lumen and stent area measurements,
as well as the NIH thickness in comparison to
manual tracing using the reviewing software provided
by the OCT manufacturer (LightLab Imaging, MA,
USA). Very good agreements were found between
the computer methods and the expert evaluations
for lumen cross-section area (mean difference =
0.11 ± 0.70 mm2; r2 = 0.98, P\ 0.0001) and the
stent cross-section area (mean difference = 0.10 ±
1.28 mm2; r2 = 0.85, P value\ 0.0001). The average
number of detected struts was 10.4 ± 2.9 per crosssection
when the expert identified 10.5 ± 2.8
(r2 = 0.78, P value\0.0001). For the given patient
dataset: lumen cross-sectional area was on the average
(6.05 ± 1.87 mm2), stent cross-sectional area was
(6.26 ± 1.63 mm2), maximum angle between struts
was on the average (85.96 ± 54.23), maximum,
average, and minimum distance between the stent
and the lumen were (0.18 ± 0.13 mm), (0.08 ±
0.06 mm), and (0.01 ± 0.02 mm), respectively, and
stent eccentricity was (0.80 ± 0.08). Low variability
between the expert and automatic method was
observed in the computations of the most important
parameters assessing the degree of neointimal tissue
growth in stents imaged by OCT pullbacks. After
further extensive validation, the presented methods
might offer a robust automated tool that will improve
the evaluation and follow-up monitoring of in-stent
restenosis in patients
Two Novel Retinal Blood Vessel Segmentation Algorithms
Assessment of blood vessels in retinal images is an important factor for many medical disorders. The changes in the retinal vessels due to the pathologies can be easily identified by segmenting the retinal vessels. Segmentation of retinal vessels is done to identify the early diagnosis of the disease like glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, macular degeneration, hypertensive retinopathy and arteriosclerosis. In this paper, we propose two automatic blood vessel segmentation methods. The first proposed algorithm starts with the extraction of blood vessel centerline pixels. The final segmentation is obtained using an iterative region growing method that merges the contents of several binary images resulting from vessel width dependent modified morphological filters on normalized retinal images. In the second proposed algorithm the blood vessel is segmented using normalized modified morphological operations and neuro fuzzy classifier. Normalized morphological operations are used to enhance the vessels and neuro fuzzy classifier is used to segment retinal blood vessels. These methods are applied on the publicly available DRIVE database and the experimental results obtained by using green channel images have been presented and their results are compared with recently published methods. The results demonstrate that our algorithms are very effective methods to detect retinal blood vessels.DOI:http://dx.doi.org/10.11591/ijece.v4i3.582
Active skeleton for bacteria modeling
The investigation of spatio-temporal dynamics of bacterial cells and their
molecular components requires automated image analysis tools to track cell
shape properties and molecular component locations inside the cells. In the
study of bacteria aging, the molecular components of interest are protein
aggregates accumulated near bacteria boundaries. This particular location makes
very ambiguous the correspondence between aggregates and cells, since computing
accurately bacteria boundaries in phase-contrast time-lapse imaging is a
challenging task. This paper proposes an active skeleton formulation for
bacteria modeling which provides several advantages: an easy computation of
shape properties (perimeter, length, thickness, orientation), an improved
boundary accuracy in noisy images, and a natural bacteria-centered coordinate
system that permits the intrinsic location of molecular components inside the
cell. Starting from an initial skeleton estimate, the medial axis of the
bacterium is obtained by minimizing an energy function which incorporates
bacteria shape constraints. Experimental results on biological images and
comparative evaluation of the performances validate the proposed approach for
modeling cigar-shaped bacteria like Escherichia coli. The Image-J plugin of the
proposed method can be found online at http://fluobactracker.inrialpes.fr.Comment: Published in Computer Methods in Biomechanics and Biomedical
Engineering: Imaging and Visualizationto appear i
A comparative evaluation for liver segmentation from spir images and a novel level set method using signed pressure force function
Thesis (Doctoral)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Izmir, 2013Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 118-135)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxv, 145 leavesDeveloping a robust method for liver segmentation from magnetic resonance images is a challenging task due to similar intensity values between adjacent organs, geometrically complex liver structure and injection of contrast media, which causes all tissues to have different gray level values. Several artifacts of pulsation and motion, and partial volume effects also increase difficulties for automatic liver segmentation from magnetic resonance images. In this thesis, we present an overview about liver segmentation methods in magnetic resonance images and show comparative results of seven different liver segmentation approaches chosen from deterministic (K-means based), probabilistic (Gaussian model based), supervised neural network (multilayer perceptron based) and deformable model based (level set) segmentation methods. The results of qualitative and quantitative analysis using sensitivity, specificity and accuracy metrics show that the multilayer perceptron based approach and a level set based approach which uses a distance regularization term and signed pressure force function are reasonable methods for liver segmentation from spectral pre-saturation inversion recovery images. However, the multilayer perceptron based segmentation method requires a higher computational cost. The distance regularization term based automatic level set method is very sensitive to chosen variance of Gaussian function. Our proposed level set based method that uses a novel signed pressure force function, which can control the direction and velocity of the evolving active contour, is faster and solves several problems of other applied methods such as sensitivity to initial contour or variance parameter of the Gaussian kernel in edge stopping functions without using any regularization term
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