21,658 research outputs found
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
An efficient method for multiobjective optimal control and optimal control subject to integral constraints
We introduce a new and efficient numerical method for multicriterion optimal
control and single criterion optimal control under integral constraints. The
approach is based on extending the state space to include information on a
"budget" remaining to satisfy each constraint; the augmented
Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman PDE is then solved numerically. The efficiency of our
approach hinges on the causality in that PDE, i.e., the monotonicity of
characteristic curves in one of the newly added dimensions. A semi-Lagrangian
"marching" method is used to approximate the discontinuous viscosity solution
efficiently. We compare this to a recently introduced "weighted sum" based
algorithm for the same problem. We illustrate our method using examples from
flight path planning and robotic navigation in the presence of friendly and
adversarial observers.Comment: The final version accepted by J. Comp. Math. : 41 pages, 14 figures.
Since the previous version: typos fixed, formatting improved, one mistake in
bibliography correcte
An Asymptotically-Optimal Sampling-Based Algorithm for Bi-directional Motion Planning
Bi-directional search is a widely used strategy to increase the success and
convergence rates of sampling-based motion planning algorithms. Yet, few
results are available that merge both bi-directional search and asymptotic
optimality into existing optimal planners, such as PRM*, RRT*, and FMT*. The
objective of this paper is to fill this gap. Specifically, this paper presents
a bi-directional, sampling-based, asymptotically-optimal algorithm named
Bi-directional FMT* (BFMT*) that extends the Fast Marching Tree (FMT*)
algorithm to bi-directional search while preserving its key properties, chiefly
lazy search and asymptotic optimality through convergence in probability. BFMT*
performs a two-source, lazy dynamic programming recursion over a set of
randomly-drawn samples, correspondingly generating two search trees: one in
cost-to-come space from the initial configuration and another in cost-to-go
space from the goal configuration. Numerical experiments illustrate the
advantages of BFMT* over its unidirectional counterpart, as well as a number of
other state-of-the-art planners.Comment: Accepted to the 2015 IEEE Intelligent Robotics and Systems Conference
in Hamburg, Germany. This submission represents the long version of the
conference manuscript, with additional proof details (Section IV) regarding
the asymptotic optimality of the BFMT* algorith
Nilpotent Approximations of Sub-Riemannian Distances for Fast Perceptual Grouping of Blood Vessels in 2D and 3D
We propose an efficient approach for the grouping of local orientations
(points on vessels) via nilpotent approximations of sub-Riemannian distances in
the 2D and 3D roto-translation groups and . In our distance
approximations we consider homogeneous norms on nilpotent groups that locally
approximate , and which are obtained via the exponential and logarithmic
map on . In a qualitative validation we show that the norms provide
accurate approximations of the true sub-Riemannian distances, and we discuss
their relations to the fundamental solution of the sub-Laplacian on .
The quantitative experiments further confirm the accuracy of the
approximations. Quantitative results are obtained by evaluating perceptual
grouping performance of retinal blood vessels in 2D images and curves in
challenging 3D synthetic volumes. The results show that 1) sub-Riemannian
geometry is essential in achieving top performance and 2) that grouping via the
fast analytic approximations performs almost equally, or better, than
data-adaptive fast marching approaches on and .Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, in review at JMI
A Rotating-Grid Upwind Fast Sweeping Scheme for a Class of Hamilton-Jacobi Equations
We present a fast sweeping method for a class of Hamilton-Jacobi equations
that arise from time-independent problems in optimal control theory. The basic
method in two dimensions uses a four point stencil and is extremely simple to
implement. We test our basic method against Eikonal equations in different
norms, and then suggest a general method for rotating the grid and using
additional approximations to the derivatives in different directions in order
to more accurately capture characteristic flow. We display the utility of our
method by applying it to relevant problems from engineering
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