Search results for "Active contour"

K-nearest neighbor driving active contours to delineate biological tumor volumes

2019

Abstract An algorithm for tumor delineation in positron emission tomography (PET) is presented. Segmentation is achieved by a local active contour algorithm, integrated and optimized with the k-nearest neighbor (KNN) classification method, which takes advantage of the stratified k-fold cross-validation strategy. The proposed approach is evaluated considering the delineation of cancers located in different body districts (i.e. brain, head and neck, and lung), and considering different PET radioactive tracers. Data are pre-processed in order to be expressed in terms of standardized uptake value, the most widely used PET quantification index. The algorithm uses an initial, operator selected re…

Automatic Segmentation of HEp-2 Cells Based on Active Contours Model

2018

In the past years, a great deal of effort was put into research regarding Indirect Immunofluorescence techniques with the aim of development of CAD systems. In this work a method for segmenting HEp-2 cells in IIF images is presented. Such task is one of the most challenging of automated IIF analysis, because the segmentation algorithm has to cope with a large heterogeneity of shapes and textures. In order to address this problem, numerous techniques and their combinations were evaluated, in a process aimed at maximizing the figure of merit. The proposed method, for a greater definition of cellular contours, uses the active contours in the last phase of the process. The initial conditions, c…

An Automatic HEp-2 Specimen Analysis System Based on an Active Contours Model and an SVM Classification

2019

The antinuclear antibody (ANA) test is widely used for screening, diagnosing, and monitoring of autoimmune diseases. The most common methods to determine ANA are indirect immunofluorescence (IIF), performed by human epithelial type 2 (HEp-2) cells, as substrate antigen. The evaluation of ANA consist an analysis of fluorescence intensity and staining patterns. This paper presents a complete and fully automatic system able to characterize IIF images. The fluorescence intensity classification was obtained by performing an image preprocessing phase and implementing a Support Vector Machines (SVM) classifier. The cells identification problem has been addressed by developing a flexible segmentati…

A novel active contour model for unsupervised low-key image segmentation

2013

Published version of an article in the journal: Central European Journal of Engineering. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/s13531-012-0050-0 Unsupervised image segmentation is greatly useful in many vision-based applications. In this paper, we aim at the unsupervised low-key image segmentation. In low-key images, dark tone dominates the background, and gray level distribution of the foreground is heterogeneous. They widely exist in the areas of space exploration, machine vision, medical imaging, etc. In our algorithm, a novel active contour model with the probability density function of gamma distribution is proposed. The flexible gamma distribution gives a bet…

Automatic analyzis of droplet impact by high speed imaging

2012

International audience; The impact of agricultural activities on the water quality is the consequence of the loss of fertilisers (chemical fertilisers, livestock effluent, also referred to as farm fertiliser, food-processing effluent and sludge) and crop treatment products (phytosanitary products). This pollution may prevent certain uses of water, notably its use for human and animal food (groundwater and surface water), and leads to a deterioration in aquatic environments. In the domain of vineyard precision spraying research, one of the most important objectives is to minimize the volume of phytosanitary products. It is also to be more environmentally respectful with more effective vine l…

Primary ciliary dyskinesia assessment by means of optical flow analysis of phase-contrast microscopy images

2014

Primary ciliary dyskinesia implies cilia with defective or total absence of motility, which may result in sinusitis, chronic bronchitis, bronchiectasis and male infertility. Diagnosis can be difficult and is based on an abnormal ciliary beat frequency (CBF) and beat pattern. In this paper, we present a method to determine CBF of isolated cells through the analysis of phase-contrast microscopy images, estimating cilia motion by means of an optical flow algorithm. After having analyzed 28 image sequences (14 with a normal beat pattern and 14 with a dyskinetic pattern), the normal group presented a CBF of 5.2 +/- 1.6 Hz, while the dyskinetic patients presented a 1.9 +/- 0.9 Hz CBF. The cutoff …

Unsupervised low-key image segmentation using curve evolution approach

2013

Low-key images widely exist in imaging-based systems such as space telescopes, medical imaging equipment, machine vision systems. Unsupervised low-key image segmentation is an important process for image analysis or digital measurement in these applications. In this paper, a novel active contour model with the probability density function (PDF) of gamma distribution for image segmentation is proposed. The flexible gamma distribution is used to describe both of the heterogeneous foreground and dark background in a low-key image. Besides, an unsupervised curve initialization method is also designed in this paper, which helps to accelerate the convergence speed of curve evolution. The effectiv…

Metodi automatici di analisi e caratterizzazione di esami radiologici del massiccio facciale.

L'obiettivo di questo lavoro è lo sviluppo di algoritmi e procedure di analisi di referti radiografici digitali di tipo CBCT delle strutture della mandibola e dell’apparato dentario. In particolare, mediante un’opportuna campagna di sperimentazione, in collaborazione con i reparti di radiologia ed odontoiatria del Policlinico di Palermo, è stata realizzata un procedura in grado di: • eliminare i problemi di sovrapponibilità dei referti tridimensionali effettuati in tempi successivi; • identificare lo spazio parodontale su indagini CBCT per la valutazione dei possibili difetti nello stesso e prevedere l’insorgenza di parodontiti. • individuare gli elementi di maggiore interesse medico caratt…

Active contour algorithm with discriminant analysis for delineating tumors in positron emission tomography.

2019

Abstract In the context of cancer delineation using positron emission tomography datasets, we present an innovative approach which purpose is to tackle the real-time, three-dimensional segmentation task in a full, or at least nearly full automatized way. The approach comprises a preliminary initialization phase where the user highlights a region of interest around the cancer on just one slice of the tomographic dataset. The algorithm takes care of identifying an optimal and user-independent region of interest around the anomalous tissue and located on the slice containing the highest standardized uptake value so to start the successive segmentation task. The three-dimensional volume is then…

<title>Restoration of a short-exposure image sequence degraded by atmospheric turbulence</title>

2000

This paper deals with the restoration of the shape of an object observed with a high-resolution infrared imaging device, through atmospheric turbulence. The propagation path is quite long (a few tenth kilometer) and the image is thus disturbed. A sequence of short-exposure images of the interesting object is recorded. We can see that the object shape fluctuates randomly during the sequence, but that its edges remain sharp, thanks to the very short exposure time. A bayesian analysis of the Fourier descriptors associated to the edges shows that the optimal shape is the one corresponding to the mean Fourier descriptors. We thus propose two ways to estimate this shape. The first one consists in…