Image Gradient Based Level Set Methods in 2D and 3D

2013

Book Chapter

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This chapter presents an image gradient based approach to perform 2D and 3D deformable model segmentation using level set. The 2D method uses an external force field that is based on magnetostatics and hypothesized magnetic interactions between the active contour and object boundaries. The major contribution of the method is that the interaction of its forces can greatly improve the active contour in capturing complex geometries and dealing with difficult initializations, weak edges and broken boundaries. This method is then generalized to 3D by reformulating its external force based on geometrical interactions between the relative geometries of the deformable model and the object boundary characterized by image gradient. The evolution of the deformable model is solved using the level set method so that topological changes are handled automatically. The relative geometrical configurations between the deformable model and the object boundaries contribute to a dynamic vector force field that changes accordingly as the deformable model evolves. The geometrically induced dynamic interaction force has been shown to greatly improve the deformable model performance in acquiring complex geometries and highly concave boundaries, and it gives the deformable model a high invariancy in initialization configurations. The voxel interactions across the whole image domain provide a global view of the object boundary representation, giving the external force a long attraction range. The bidirectionality of the external force field allows the new deformable model to deal with arbitrary cross-boundary initializations, and facilitates the handling of weak edges and broken boundaries.

@inbook{Xi:DFMDS:2013,
  title = {Image Gradient Based Level Set Methods in 2D and 3D},
  author = {Xie, Xianhua and Yeo, Si Yong and Mirmehdi, Majid and Sazonov, Igor and Nithiarasu, Perumal},
  booktitle = {Deformation Models: Tracking, Animation and Applications},
  pages = {101-120},
  chapter = {0},
  editors = {Manuel González Hidalgo and Arnau Mir Torres and Javier Varona Gómez},
  publisher = {Springer},
  year = {2013},
  doi = {}
}