John Melonakos

Finsler Active Contours

In this paper, we propose an image segmentation technique based on augmenting the conformal (or geodesic) active contour framework with directional information. In the isotropic case, the euclidean metric is locally multiplied by a scalar conformal factor based on image information such that the weighted length of curves lying on points of interest (typically edges) is small. The conformal factor that is chosen depends only upon position and is in this sense isotropic. Although directional information has been studied previously for other segmentation frameworks, here, we show that if one desires to add directionality in the conformal active contour framework, then one gets a well-defined minimization problem in the case that the factor defines a Finsler metric. Optimal curves may be obtained using the calculus of variations or dynamic programming-based schemes. Finally, we demonstrate the technique by extracting roads from aerial imagery, blood vessels from medical angiograms, and neural tracts from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imagery.

3D nonrigid registration via optimal mass transport on the GPU

In this paper, we present a new computationally efficient numerical scheme for the minimizing flow approach for optimal mass transport (OMT) with applications to non-rigid 3D image registration. The approach utilizes all of the gray-scale data in both images, and the optimal mapping from image A to image B is the inverse of the optimal mapping from B to A. Further, no landmarks need to be specified, and the minimizer of the distance functional involved is unique. Our implementation also employs multigrid, and parallel methodologies on a consumer graphics processing unit (GPU) for fast computation. Although computing the optimal map has been shown to be computationally expensive in the past, we show that our approach is orders of magnitude faster then previous work and is capable of finding transport maps with optimality measures (mean curl) previously unattainable by other works (which directly influences the accuracy of registration). We give results where the algorithm was used to compute non-rigid registrations of 3D synthetic data as well as intra-patient pre-operative and post-operative 3D brain MRI datasets.

Finsler tractography for white matter connectivity analysis of the cingulum bundle

In this paper, we present a novel approach for the segmentation of white matter tracts based on Finsler active contours. This technique provides an optimal measure of connectivity, explicitly segments the connecting fiber bundle, and is equipped with a metric which is able to utilize the directional information of high angular resolution data. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the algorithm for segmenting the cingulum bundle.

ArrayFire: a GPU acceleration platform

ArrayFire is a GPU matrix library for the rapid development of general purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing applications within C, C++, Fortran, and Python. ArrayFire contains a simple API and provides full GPU compute capability on CUDA and OpenCL capable devices. ArrayFire provides thousands of GPU-tuned functions including linear algebra, convolutions, reductions, and FFTs as well as signal, image, statistics, and graphics libraries. We will further describe how ArrayFire enables development of GPU computing applications and highlight some of its key functionality using examples of how it works in real code.

High-level GPU computing with jacket for MATLAB and C/C++

We describe a software platform for the rapid development of general purpose GPU (GPGPU) computing applications within the MATLAB computing environment, C, and C++: Jacket. Jacket provides thousands of GPU-tuned function syntaxes within MATLAB, C, and C++, including linear algebra, convolutions, reductions, and FFTs as well as signal, image, statistics, and graphics libraries. Additionally, Jacket includes a compiler that translates MATLAB and C++ code to CUDA PTX assembly and OpenGL shaders on demand at runtime. A facility is also included to compile a domain specific version of the MATLAB language to CUDA assembly at build time. Jacket includes the first parallel GPU FOR-loop construction and the first profiler for comparative analysis of CPU and GPU execution times. Jacket provides full GPU compute capability on CUDA hardware and limited, image processing focused compute on OpenGL/ES (2.0 and up) devices for mobile and embedded applications.

Locally-Constrained Region-Based Methods for DW-MRI Segmentation

In this paper, we describe a method for segmenting fiber bundles from diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images using a locally-constrained region based approach. From a pre-computed optimal path, the algorithm propagates outward capturing only those voxels which are locally connected to the fiber bundle. Rather than attempting to find large numbers of open curves or single fibers, which individually have questionable meaning, this method segments the full fiber bundle region. The strengths of this approach include its ease-of-use, computational speed, and applicability to a wide range of fiber bundles. In this work, we show results for segmenting the cingulum bundle. Finally, we explain how this approach and extensions thereto overcome a major problem that typical region-based flows experience when attempting to segment neural fiber bundles.

Near-tubular fiber bundle segmentation for diffusion weighted imaging: Segmentation through frame reorientation

This paper proposes a methodology to segment near-tubular fiber bundles from diffusion weighted magnetic resonance images (DW-MRI). Segmentation is simplified by locally reorienting diffusion information based on large-scale fiber bundle geometry. Segmentation is achieved through simple global statistical modeling of diffusion orientation. Utilizing a modification of a recent segmentation approach by Bresson et al. allows for a convex optimization formulation of the segmentation problem, combining orientation statistics and spatial regularization. The approach compares favorably with segmentation by full-brain streamline tractography.

Localized statistics for DW-MRI fiber bundle segmentation

We describe a method for segmenting neural fiber bundles in diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance images (DW-MRI). As these bundles traverse the brain to connect regions, their local orientation of diffusion changes drastically, hence a constant global model is inaccurate. We propose a method to compute localized statistics on orientation information and use it to drive a variational active contour segmentation that accurately models the non-homogeneous orientation information present along the bundle. Initialized from a single fiber path, the proposed method proceeds to capture the entire bundle. We demonstrate results using the technique to segment the cingulum bundle and describe several extensions making the technique applicable to a wide range of tissues.

A probabilistic model for haustral curvatures with applications to colon CAD

Among the many features used for classification in computer-aided detection (CAD) systems targeting colonic polyps, those based on differences between the shapes of polyps and folds are most common. We introduce here an explicit parametric model for the haustra or colon wall. The proposed model captures the overall shape of the haustra and we use it to derive the probability distribution of features relevant to polyp detection. The usefulness of the model is demonstrated through its application to a colon CAD algorithm.

Finsler Level Set Segmentation for Imagery in Oriented Domains

Presented at British Machine Vision Conference 2007, University of Warwick, UK, September 10-13, 2007.