49 research outputs found
Numerical Approaches for Linear Left-invariant Diffusions on SE(2), their Comparison to Exact Solutions, and their Applications in Retinal Imaging
Left-invariant PDE-evolutions on the roto-translation group (and
their resolvent equations) have been widely studied in the fields of cortical
modeling and image analysis. They include hypo-elliptic diffusion (for contour
enhancement) proposed by Citti & Sarti, and Petitot, and they include the
direction process (for contour completion) proposed by Mumford. This paper
presents a thorough study and comparison of the many numerical approaches,
which, remarkably, is missing in the literature. Existing numerical approaches
can be classified into 3 categories: Finite difference methods, Fourier based
methods (equivalent to -Fourier methods), and stochastic methods (Monte
Carlo simulations). There are also 3 types of exact solutions to the
PDE-evolutions that were derived explicitly (in the spatial Fourier domain) in
previous works by Duits and van Almsick in 2005. Here we provide an overview of
these 3 types of exact solutions and explain how they relate to each of the 3
numerical approaches. We compute relative errors of all numerical approaches to
the exact solutions, and the Fourier based methods show us the best performance
with smallest relative errors. We also provide an improvement of Mathematica
algorithms for evaluating Mathieu-functions, crucial in implementations of the
exact solutions. Furthermore, we include an asymptotical analysis of the
singularities within the kernels and we propose a probabilistic extension of
underlying stochastic processes that overcomes the singular behavior in the
origin of time-integrated kernels. Finally, we show retinal imaging
applications of combining left-invariant PDE-evolutions with invertible
orientation scores.Comment: A final and corrected version of the manuscript is Published in
Numerical Mathematics: Theory, Methods and Applications (NM-TMA), vol. (9),
p.1-50, 201
Numerical approaches for linear left-invariant diffusions on SE(2), their comparison to exact solutions, and their applications in retinal imaging
Left-invariant PDE-evolutions on the roto-translation group SE(2) (and their resolvent equations) have been widely studied in the fields of cortical modeling and image analysis. They include hypo-elliptic diffusion (for contour enhancement) proposed by Citti & Sarti, and Petitot, and they include the direction process (for contour completion) proposed by Mumford. This paper presents a thorough study and comparison of the many numerical approaches, which, remarkably, is missing in the literature. Existing numerical approaches can be classified into 3 categories: Finite difference methods, Fourier based finite element type of methods (equivalent to SE(2)-Fourier methods), and stochastic methods (Monte Carlo simulations). There are also 3 types of exact solutions to the PDE-evolutions that were derived explicitly (in the spatial Fourier domain) in previous works by Duits and van Almsick in 2005. Here we provide an overview of these 3 types of exact solutions and explain how they relate to each of the 3 numerical approaches. We compute relative errors of numerical approaches to the exact solutions, and the Fourier based methods show us the best performance with smallest relative errors. We also provide an improvement of Mathematica algorithms for evaluating Mathieu-functions crucially in implementations of the exact solutions. Furthermore, we include an asymptotical analysis of the singularities within the kernels and we propose a probabilistic extension of underlying stochastic processes that overcomes the singular behavior in the origin of time-integrated kernels. Finally, we show retinal imaging applications of combining the left-invariant PDE-evolutions with invertible orientation scores
Locally Adaptive Frames in the Roto-Translation Group and their Applications in Medical Imaging
Locally adaptive differential frames (gauge frames) are a well-known
effective tool in image analysis, used in differential invariants and
PDE-flows. However, at complex structures such as crossings or junctions, these
frames are not well-defined. Therefore, we generalize the notion of gauge
frames on images to gauge frames on data representations defined on the extended space of positions and
orientations, which we relate to data on the roto-translation group ,
. This allows to define multiple frames per position, one per
orientation. We compute these frames via exponential curve fits in the extended
data representations in . These curve fits minimize first or second
order variational problems which are solved by spectral decomposition of,
respectively, a structure tensor or Hessian of data on . We include
these gauge frames in differential invariants and crossing preserving PDE-flows
acting on extended data representation and we show their advantage compared
to the standard left-invariant frame on . Applications include
crossing-preserving filtering and improved segmentations of the vascular tree
in retinal images, and new 3D extensions of coherence-enhancing diffusion via
invertible orientation scores
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
New Exact and Numerical Solutions of the (Convection-)Diffusion Kernels on SE(3)
We consider hypo-elliptic diffusion and convection-diffusion on , the quotient of the Lie group of rigid body motions SE(3) in
which group elements are equivalent if they are equal up to a rotation around
the reference axis. We show that we can derive expressions for the convolution
kernels in terms of eigenfunctions of the PDE, by extending the approach for
the SE(2) case. This goes via application of the Fourier transform of the PDE
in the spatial variables, yielding a second order differential operator. We
show that the eigenfunctions of this operator can be expressed as (generalized)
spheroidal wave functions. The same exact formulas are derived via the Fourier
transform on SE(3). We solve both the evolution itself, as well as the
time-integrated process that corresponds to the resolvent operator.
Furthermore, we have extended a standard numerical procedure from SE(2) to
SE(3) for the computation of the solution kernels that is directly related to
the exact solutions. Finally, we provide a novel analytic approximation of the
kernels that we briefly compare to the exact kernels.Comment: Revised and restructure
Highly corrupted image inpainting through hypoelliptic diffusion
We present a new image inpainting algorithm, the Averaging and Hypoelliptic
Evolution (AHE) algorithm, inspired by the one presented in [SIAM J. Imaging
Sci., vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 669--695, 2014] and based upon a semi-discrete
variation of the Citti-Petitot-Sarti model of the primary visual cortex V1. The
AHE algorithm is based on a suitable combination of sub-Riemannian hypoelliptic
diffusion and ad-hoc local averaging techniques. In particular, we focus on
reconstructing highly corrupted images (i.e. where more than the 80% of the
image is missing), for which we obtain reconstructions comparable with the
state-of-the-art.Comment: 15 pages, 10 figure
A semidiscrete version of the Citti-Petitot-Sarti model as a plausible model for anthropomorphic image reconstruction and pattern recognition
In his beautiful book [66], Jean Petitot proposes a sub-Riemannian model for
the primary visual cortex of mammals. This model is neurophysiologically
justified. Further developments of this theory lead to efficient algorithms for
image reconstruction, based upon the consideration of an associated
hypoelliptic diffusion. The sub-Riemannian model of Petitot and Citti-Sarti (or
certain of its improvements) is a left-invariant structure over the group
of rototranslations of the plane. Here, we propose a semi-discrete
version of this theory, leading to a left-invariant structure over the group
, restricting to a finite number of rotations. This apparently very
simple group is in fact quite atypical: it is maximally almost periodic, which
leads to much simpler harmonic analysis compared to Based upon this
semi-discrete model, we improve on previous image-reconstruction algorithms and
we develop a pattern-recognition theory that leads also to very efficient
algorithms in practice.Comment: 123 pages, revised versio
Geodesic Tracking via New Data-driven Connections of Cartan Type for Vascular Tree Tracking
We introduce a data-driven version of the plus Cartan connection on the
homogeneous space of 2D positions and orientations. We formulate
a theorem that describes all shortest and straight curves (parallel velocity
and parallel momentum, respectively) with respect to this new data-driven
connection and corresponding Riemannian manifold. Then we use these shortest
curves for geodesic tracking of complex vasculature in multi-orientation image
representations defined on . The data-driven Cartan connection
characterizes the Hamiltonian flow of all geodesics. It also allows for
improved adaptation to curvature and misalignment of the (lifted) vessel
structure that we track via globally optimal geodesics. We compute these
geodesics numerically via steepest descent on distance maps on
that we compute by a new modified anisotropic fast-marching method.
Our experiments range from tracking single blood vessels with fixed endpoints
to tracking complete vascular trees in retinal images. Single vessel tracking
is performed in a single run in the multi-orientation image representation,
where we project the resulting geodesics back onto the underlying image. The
complete vascular tree tracking requires only two runs and avoids prior
segmentation, placement of extra anchor points, and dynamic switching between
geodesic models.
Altogether we provide a geodesic tracking method using a single, flexible,
transparent, data-driven geodesic model providing globally optimal curves which
correctly follow highly complex vascular structures in retinal images.
All experiments in this article can be reproduced via documented Mathematica
notebooks available at GitHub
(https://github.com/NickyvdBerg/DataDrivenTracking)