A Multi-signal Variant for the GPU-based Parallelization of Growing Self-Organizing Networks

Among the many possible approaches for the parallelization of self-organizing networks, and in particular of growing self-organizing networks, perhaps the most common one is producing an optimized, parallel implementation of the standard sequential algorithms reported in the literature. In this paper we explore an alternative approach, based on a new algorithm variant specifically designed to match the features of the large-scale, fine-grained parallelism of GPUs, in which multiple input signals are processed at once. Comparative tests have been performed, using both parallel and sequential implementations of the new algorithm variant, in particular for a growing self-organizing network that reconstructs surfaces from point clouds. The experimental results show that this approach allows harnessing in a more effective way the intrinsic parallelism that the self-organizing networks algorithms seem intuitively to suggest, obtaining better performances even with networks of smaller size.Comment: 17 page

A Growing Self-Organizing Network for Reconstructing Curves and Surfaces

Self-organizing networks such as Neural Gas, Growing Neural Gas and many others have been adopted in actual applications for both dimensionality reduction and manifold learning. Typically, in these applications, the structure of the adapted network yields a good estimate of the topology of the unknown subspace from where the input data points are sampled. The approach presented here takes a different perspective, namely by assuming that the input space is a manifold of known dimension. In return, the new type of growing self-organizing network presented gains the ability to adapt itself in way that may guarantee the effective and stable recovery of the exact topological structure of the input manifold

Extranoematic artifacts: neural systems in space and topology

During the past several decades, the evolution in architecture and engineering went through several stages of exploration of form. While the procedures of generating the form have varied from using physical analogous form-finding computation to engaging the form with simulated dynamic forces in digital environment, the self-generation and organization of form has always been the goal. this thesis further intend to contribute to self-organizational capacity in Architecture. The subject of investigation is the rationalizing of geometry from an unorganized point cloud by using learning neural networks. Furthermore, the focus is oriented upon aspects of efficient construction of generated topology. Neural network is connected with constraining properties, which adjust the members of the topology into predefined number of sizes while minimizing the error of deviation from the original form. The resulted algorithm is applied in several different scenarios of construction, highlighting the possibilities and versatility of this method

3D model reconstruction using neural gas accelerated on GPU

In this work, we propose the use of the neural gas (NG), a neural network that uses an unsupervised Competitive Hebbian Learning (CHL) rule, to develop a reverse engineering process. This is a simple and accurate method to reconstruct objects from point clouds obtained from multiple overlapping views using low-cost sensors. In contrast to other methods that may need several stages that include downsampling, noise filtering and many other tasks, the NG automatically obtains the 3D model of the scanned objects. To demonstrate the validity of our proposal we tested our method with several models and performed a study of the neural network parameterization computing the quality of representation and also comparing results with other neural methods like growing neural gas and Kohonen maps or classical methods like Voxel Grid. We also reconstructed models acquired by low cost sensors that can be used in virtual and augmented reality environments for redesign or manipulation purposes. Since the NG algorithm has a strong computational cost we propose its acceleration. We have redesigned and implemented the NG learning algorithm to fit it onto Graphics Processing Units using CUDA. A speed-up of 180× faster is obtained compared to the sequential CPU version.This work was partially funded by the Spanish Government DPI2013-40534-R grant

Multiple 2D self organising map network for surface reconstruction of 3D unstructured data

Surface reconstruction is a challenging task in reverse engineering because it must represent the surface which is similar to the original object based on the data obtained. The data obtained are mostly in unstructured type whereby there is not enough information and incorrect surface will be obtained. Therefore, the data should be reorganised by finding the correct topology with minimum surface error. Previous studies showed that Self Organising Map (SOM) model, the conventional surface approximation approach with Non Uniform Rational B-Splines (NURBS) surfaces, and optimisation methods such as Genetic Algorithm (GA), Differential Evolution (DE) and Particle Swarm Optimisation (PSO) methods are widely implemented in solving the surface reconstruction. However, the model, approach and optimisation methods are still suffer from the unstructured data and accuracy problems. Therefore, the aims of this research are to propose Cube SOM (CSOM) model with multiple 2D SOM network in organising the unstructured surface data, and to propose optimised surface approximation approach in generating the NURBS surfaces. GA, DE and PSO methods are implemented to minimise the surface error by adjusting the NURBS control points. In order to test and validate the proposed model and approach, four primitive objects data and one medical image data are used. As to evaluate the performance of the proposed model and approach, three performance measurements have been used: Average Quantisation Error (AQE) and Number Of Vertices (NOV) for the CSOM model while surface error for the proposed optimised surface approximation approach. The accuracy of AQE for CSOM model has been improved to 64% and 66% when compared to 2D and 3D SOM respectively. The NOV for CSOM model has been reduced from 8000 to 2168 as compared to 3D SOM. The accuracy of surface error for the optimised surface approximation approach has been improved to 7% compared to the conventional approach. The proposed CSOM model and optimised surface approximation approach have successfully reconstructed surface of all five data with better performance based on three performance measurements used in the evaluation

Hacia el modelado 3d de tumores cerebrales mediante endoneurosonografía y redes neuronales

Las cirugías mínimamente invasivas se han vuelto populares debido a que implican menos riesgos con respecto a las intervenciones tradicionales. En neurocirugía, las tendencias recientes sugieren el uso conjunto de la endoscopia y el ultrasonido, técnica llamada endoneurosonografía (ENS), para la virtualización 3D de las estructuras del cerebro en tiempo real. La información ENS se puede utilizar para generar modelos 3D de los tumores del cerebro durante la cirugía. En este trabajo, presentamos una metodología para el modelado 3D de tumores cerebrales con ENS y redes neuronales. Específicamente, se estudió el uso de mapas auto-organizados (SOM) y de redes neuronales tipo gas (NGN). En comparación con otras técnicas, el modelado 3D usando redes neuronales ofrece ventajas debido a que la morfología del tumor se codifica directamente sobre los pesos sinápticos de la red, no requiere ningún conocimiento a priori y la representación puede ser desarrollada en dos etapas: entrenamiento fuera de línea y adaptación en línea. Se realizan pruebas experimentales con maniquíes médicos de tumores cerebrales. Al final del documento, se presentan los resultados del modelado 3D a partir de una base de datos ENS.Minimally invasive surgeries have become popular because they reduce the typical risks of traditional interventions. In neurosurgery, recent trends suggest the combined use of endoscopy and ultrasound (endoneurosonography or ENS) for 3D virtualization of brain structures in real time. The ENS information can be used to generate 3D models of brain tumors during a surgery. This paper introduces a methodology for 3D modeling of brain tumors using ENS and unsupervised neural networks. The use of self-organizing maps (SOM) and neural gas networks (NGN) is particularly studied. Compared to other techniques, 3D modeling using neural networks offers advantages, since tumor morphology is directly encoded in synaptic weights of the network, no a priori knowledge is required, and the representation can be developed in two stages: off-line training and on-line adaptation. Experimental tests were performed using virtualized phantom brain tumors. At the end of the paper, the results of 3D modeling from an ENS database are presented

GPUMLib: Deep Learning SOM Library for Surface Reconstruction

The evolution of 3D scanning devices and innovation in computer processing power and storage capacity has sparked the revolution of producing big point-cloud datasets. This phenomenon has becoming an integral part of the sophisticated building design process especially in the era of 4th Industrial Revolution. The big point-cloud datasets have caused complexity in handling surface reconstruction and visualization since existing algorithms are not so readily available. In this context, the surface reconstruction intelligent algorithms need to be revolutionized to deal with big point-cloud datasets in tandem with the advancement of hardware processing power and storage capacity. In this study, we propose GPUMLib – deep learning library for self-organizing map (SOM-DLLib) to solve problems involving big point-cloud datasets from 3D scanning devices. The SOM-DLLib consists of multiple layers for reducing and optimizing those big point cloud datasets. The findings show the final objects are successfully reconstructed with optimized neighborhood representation and the performance becomes better as the size of point clouds increases

S-TREE: Self-Organizing Trees for Data Clustering and Online Vector Quantization

This paper introduces S-TREE (Self-Organizing Tree), a family of models that use unsupervised learning to construct hierarchical representations of data and online tree-structured vector quantizers. The S-TREE1 model, which features a new tree-building algorithm, can be implemented with various cost functions. An alternative implementation, S-TREE2, which uses a new double-path search procedure, is also developed. S-TREE2 implements an online procedure that approximates an optimal (unstructured) clustering solution while imposing a tree-structure constraint. The performance of the S-TREE algorithms is illustrated with data clustering and vector quantization examples, including a Gauss-Markov source benchmark and an image compression application. S-TREE performance on these tasks is compared with the standard tree-structured vector quantizer (TSVQ) and the generalized Lloyd algorithm (GLA). The image reconstruction quality with S-TREE2 approaches that of GLA while taking less than 10% of computer time. S-TREE1 and S-TREE2 also compare favorably with the standard TSVQ in both the time needed to create the codebook and the quality of image reconstruction.Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-10409, N00014-95-0G57