Cube-Cut: Vertebral Body Segmentation in MRI-Data through Cubic-Shaped Divergences

In this article, we present a graph-based method using a cubic template for volumetric segmentation of vertebrae in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) acquisitions. The user can define the degree of deviation from a regular cube via a smoothness value Delta. The Cube-Cut algorithm generates a directed graph with two terminal nodes (s-t-network), where the nodes of the graph correspond to a cubic-shaped subset of the image's voxels. The weightings of the graph's terminal edges, which connect every node with a virtual source s or a virtual sink t, represent the affinity of a voxel to the vertebra (source) and to the background (sink). Furthermore, a set of infinite weighted and non-terminal edges implements the smoothness term. After graph construction, a minimal s-t-cut is calculated within polynomial computation time, which splits the nodes into two disjoint units. Subsequently, the segmentation result is determined out of the source-set. A quantitative evaluation of a C++ implementation of the algorithm resulted in an average Dice Similarity Coefficient (DSC) of 81.33% and a running time of less than a minute.Comment: 23 figures, 2 tables, 43 references, PLoS ONE 9(4): e9338

Topological challenges in multispectral image segmentation

Land cover classification from remote sensing multispectral images has been traditionallyconducted by using mainly spectral information associated with discrete spatial units (i.e. pixels).Geometric and topological characteristics of the spatial context close to every pixel have been either not fully treated or completely ignored.This article provides a review of the strategies used by a number of researchers in order to include spatial and topological properties in image segmentation.­­­It is shown how most of researchers have proposed to perform -previous to classification- a grouping or segmentation of nearby pixels by modeling neighborhood relationships as 4-connected, 8-connected and (a, b) – connected graphs.In this object-oriented approach, however, topological concepts such as neighborhood, contiguity, connectivity and boundary suffer from ambiguity since image elements (pixels) are two-dimensional entities composing a spatially uniform grid cell (i.e. there are not uni-dimensional nor zero-dimensional elements to build boundaries). In order to solve such topological paradoxes, a few proposals have been proposed. This review discusses how the alternative of digital images representation based on Cartesian complexes suggested by Kovalevsky (2008) for image segmentation in computer vision, does not present topological flaws, typical of conventional solutions based on grid cells. However, such a proposal has not been yet applied to multispectral image segmentation in remote sensing. This review is part of the PhD in Engineering research conducted by the first author under guidance of the second one. This review concludes suggesting the need to research on the potential of using Cartesian complexes for multispectral image segmentation

Automatic post-processing for tolerance inspection of digitized parts made by injection moulding

This paper presents the advancements of an automatic segmentation procedure based on the concept of Hierarchical Space Partitioning. It is aimed at tolerance inspection of electromechanical parts produced by injection moulding and acquired by laser scanning. After a general overview of the procedure, its application for recognising cylindrical surfaces is presented and discussed through a specific industrial test case