A 3-D marker-free system for the analysis of movement disabilities--an application to the legs.

The aim of this paper is to describe an approach allowing the analysis of human motion in three-dimensional (3-D) space. The system that we developed is composed of three charge-coupled-device cameras that capture synchronized image sequences of a human body in motion without the use of markers. Characteristic points belonging to the boundaries of the body in motion are first extracted from the initial images. Two-dimensional superquadrics are then adjusted on these points by a fuzzy clustering process. After that, the position of a 3-D model based on a set of articulated superquadrics, each of them describing a part of the human body, is reconstructed. An optical flow process allows the pr…

Contribution to a marker-free system for human motion analysis

This paper presents a novel approach to human gait analysis using a marker-free system. The devised acquisition system is composed of three synchronized and calibrated charge coupled device cameras. The aim of this work is to recognize in gray level image sequences the leg of a walking human and to reconstruct it in the three-dimensional space. An articulated threedimensional (3D) model of the human body, based on the use of tapered superquadric curves, is first introduced. A motion-based segmentation, using morphological operators, is then applied to the image sequences in order to extract the boundaries of the leg in motion. A reconstruction process, based on the use of a least median of …

Euclid preparation XV. Forecasting cosmological constraints for the Euclid and CMB joint analysis

The combination and cross-correlation of the upcoming $Euclid$ data with cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements is a source of great expectation since it will provide the largest lever arm of epochs, ranging from recombination to structure formation across the entire past light cone. In this work, we present forecasts for the joint analysis of $Euclid$ and CMB data on the cosmological parameters of the standard cosmological model and some of its extensions. This work expands and complements the recently published forecasts based on $Euclid$-specific probes, namely galaxy clustering, weak lensing, and their cross-correlation. With some assumptions on the specifications of current and…

Cardiac motion tracking using a deformable 2D-mesh modeling

International audience; Abstract: The work reported here deals with movement tracking in sequences of medical images in order to quantify the general movements and deformations of the heart For this purpose, we partition the first image into triangular patches in order that each object of the image corresponds to a set of triangles. Then, the nodes of the mesh are tracked across the image sequence giving a mesh which warps with the images. The method is applied to cardiac image sequences where the study of the deformation of the triangles is applied to the determination of the movement of the ventricles

Object tracking in medical imaging using a 2D active mesh system

International audience; Abstract: This article proposes a technique for tracking moving organs in medical imaging. It can be split into two stages. We first initialize a 2D-triangular mesh on the first image of the sequence. We distinguish different objects of interest by grouping together the triangles that make them up. Afterwards, we deform this mesh on the successive images in order to track each identified object. The tracking stage uses optical flow by adding a node relaxation step to avoid mesh deteriorations. The mesh deformations analysis provides access to motion information along the sequence. This technique is applied to a cine-MRI sequences of the heart and allows the analysis …

An adapted optical flow algorithm for robust quantification of cardiac wall motion from standard cine-MR examinations

International audience; This paper presents a method for local myocardial motion estimation from a conventional steady-state free precession cine-MRI sequence using a modified phase-based optical flow (OF) technique. Initially, the technique was tested on synthetic images to evaluate its robustness with regards to Rician noise and to brightness variations. The method was then applied to cardiac images acquired on 11 healthy subjects. Myocardial velocity is measured in centimeter per second in each studied pixel and visualized as colored vectors superimposed on MRI images. The estimated phase-based OF results were compared with a reference OF method and gave similar results on synthetic imag…

Automatic determination of aortic compliance with cine-magnetic resonance imaging - An application of fuzzy logic theory

International audience; Abstract: RATIONALE AND OBJECTIVES. Aortic compliance is defined as the relative change in aortic cross-sectional area divided by the change in arterial pressure. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a useful imaging modality for the noninvasive evaluation of aortic compliance. However, manual tracing of the aortic contour is subject to important interobserver variations. To estimate the aortic compliance from cine-MRI, a method based on fuzzy logic theory was elaborated. MATERIALS AND METHODS. Seven healthy volunteers and eight patients with Marfan syndrome were examined using an ECG gated cine-MRI sequence. The aorta was imaged in the transverse plane at the level o…

Signal Processing for Image Enhancement and Multimedia Processing

Using Fourier local magnitude in adaptive smoothness constraints in motion estimation

Like many problems in image analysis, motion estimation is an ill-posed one, since the available data do not always sufficiently constrain the solution. It is therefore necessary to regularize the solution by imposing a smoothness constraint. One of the main difficulties while estimating motion is to preserve the discontinuities of the motion field. In this paper, we address this problem by integrating the motion magnitude information obtained by the Fourier analysis into the smoothness constraint, resulting in an adaptive smoothness. We describe how to achieve this with two different motion estimation approaches: the Horn and Schunck method and the Markov Random Field (MRF) modeling. The t…

Dynamic 4D Blood Flow Representation in the Aorta and Analysis from Cine-MRI in Patients

International audience; Abstract: Natural evolution of aortic disease is characterized by a diameter increase that can result in aortic dissection or rupture. Currently the evaluation of risk of rupture or dissection is based on the size of the aorta. However, this parameter is not always relevant and it appears necessary to define new parameters. In this perspective, 3D velocity imaging acquired with ECG gated velocity-encoded cine-MRI allows the aortic blood flow study. As the acquired images are not directly usable, the present study proposes a 4D-representation Of aortic blood flow in order to optimize the visualization of the particularities of non-laminar flow within the aorta. Image …

Compliance and Pulse Wave Velocity Assessed by MRI Detect Early Aortic Impairment in Young Patients With Mutation of the Smooth Muscle Myosin Heavy Chain

Purpose To evaluate aortic elasticity with MRI on young asymptomatic individuals with mutation of the smooth muscle myosin heavy chain in whom aortic enlargement is not present. Materials and Methods Aortic compliance, aortic distensibility, and pulse wave velocity (PWV) were semiautomatically measured from MRI in 8 asymptomatic subjects having a mutation of the MYH11 gene (M+) and 21 nonmutated relatives (M−) of similar age, sex, and blood pressure characteristics. Results Despite a similar aortic diameter in both groups, the aortic compliance and distensibility were significantly lower in M+ subjects compared with M− (0.84 ± 0.33 versus 2.03 ± 0.54 mm2/mmHg, 1.18 ± 0.62 10−3 versus 5.11 ±…

Left ventricular ejection fraction calculation from automatically selected and processed diastolic and systolic frames in short-axis cine-MRI

International audience; Abstract: The calculation of the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) is dependent upon the accurate measurement of diastolic and systolic left ventricular volumes. Although breath-hold cine magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) allows coverage of the whole cardiac cycle with an excellent time resolution, many authors rely on the visual selection of diastolic and the systolic short-axis slices in order to reduce the postprocessing time. An automatic method was developed to detect the endocardial contour on each image, allowing an automatic selection of the systolic frame. The calculated ejection fraction was compared with radionuclide ventriculography (RNV). Sixty-fi…

Le traitement d’images médicales : Principes, principales applications et perspectives

Apres avoir lu ce chapitre, vous devriez : avoir compris le sens des termes importants utilises frequemment en traitement d’images medicales : segmentation, compression, DICOM, filtrage, traitement morphologique, recalage, PACS ; avoir compris les bases et objectifs des principales techniques de traitement et d’analyse d’images ; pouvoir citer les principaux formats d’image et leurs avantages ; savoir expliquer les principes de la compression des images et ses limites en medecine ; pouvoir faire la difference entre compression avec pertes et compression sans perte ; connaitre le standard DICOM des images medicales ; pouvoir definir la notion de segmentation d’images medicales ; connaitre le…

Magnetic resonance image segmentation and heart motion tracking with an active mesh based system

International audience; Abstract: The work presented here relates to a method fir motion tracking in sequences of medical images. The purpose is to. quantify the general motions and the local deformations of a beating heart during a cardiac cycle. In order to achieve this goal, we first tessellate the,first image of the sequence into triangular patches. A Delaunay triangulation is applied to find the optimal set of triangles describing this image, giving a mesh covering the organs. One imposes the contours of the organs to correspond to edges of triangles so that each part of the heart (left ventricle, right ventricle, myocardium) can he described as a different set of triai izles, each set…

The Processing of Medical Images: Principles, Main Applications and Perspectives

This chapter provides an introduction to the basic concepts of medical digital image processing. We kept the mathematical complexity of the chapter at a low level so that life science students can understand the underlying principles behind the methods of analysis and computer-assisted diagnosis.

Automatic Detection of Left Ventricular Contours from Cardiac Cine Magnetic Resonance Imaging Using Fuzzy Logic

Gated cardiac cine magnetic resonance imaging provides accurate dynamic data of the left ventricular function. However, the manual extraction of important physiologic parameters such as myocardium wall thickness and left ventricular volumes is invariably time consuming and subjective. To reduce the variability and time constraints inherent in observer contour tracing, the authors developed an automatic left ventricle contour-detection method.The purpose was to apply fuzzy logic-based automatic contour detection to identification of endocardial and epicardial borders in short-axis magnetic resonance images. The automatic contouring was compared with manual tracing using the calculated ejecti…