Abstract: Article ID 901205
This paper describes an efficient background subtraction technique for detecting moving objects. The proposed approach is able to overcome difficulties like illumination changes and moving shadows. Our method introduces two discriminative features based on angular and modular patterns, which are formed by similarity measurement between two sets of RGB color vectors: one belonging to the background image and the other to the current image. We show how these patterns are used to improve foreground detection in the presence of moving shadows and in the case when there are strong similarities in color between background and foreground pixels. Experimental results over a collection of public and own datasets of real image sequences demonstrate that the proposed technique achieves a superior performance compared with state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, both the low computational and space complexities make the presented algorithm feasible for real-time applications.

Abstract: Durante la próxima década, los sistemas de protección de peatones jugarán un papel fundamental en el reto de mejorar la seguridad viaria. El objetivo principal de estos sistemas, detectar peatones en entornos urbanos, implica procesar imágenes de escenas exteriores desde una plataforma móvil para buscar objetos de aspecto variable como son las personas. Dadas estas dificultades, estos sistemas hacen uso de las últimas técnicas de visión por computador. Esta propuesta consiste en un sistema de tres módulos basado tanto en información 2D como en 3D. El primer módulo utiliza información 3D para hacer una estimación de los parámetros de la carretera y seleccionar regiones de interés que serán analizadas después. El segundo módulo utiliza un clasificador de ventanas 2D para etiquetar las mencionadas regiones como peatón o no peatón. El módulo final vuelve a utilizar de nuevo la información 3D para verificar las regiones clasificadas y, con información 2D, refinar los resultados finales. Los resultados experimentales son positivos tanto en rendimiento como en tiempo de cómputo.

Abstract: Cardiac Magnetic Resonance images offer the opportunity to study the heart in detail. One of the main issues in its modelling is to create an accurate 3-D reconstruction of the left ventricle from 2-D views. A first step to achieve this goal is the correct registration among the different image planes due to patient movements. In this article, we present an accurate method to correct displacement artifacts using the Normalized Mutual Information. Here, the image views are treated as planes in order to diminish the approximation error caused by the association of a certain thickness, and moved simultaneously to avoid any kind of bias in the alignment process. This method has been validated using real and syntectic plane displacements, yielding promising results.

Abstract: We present a new automatic technique to visualize and quantify the mutual position between the stent and the vessel wall by considering their three-dimensional reconstruction. Two deformable generalized cylinders adapt to the image features in all IVUS planes corresponding to the vessel wall and the stent in order to reconstruct the boundaries of the stent and the vessel in space. The image features that characterize the stent and the vessel wall are determined in terms of edge and ridge image detectors taking into account the gray level of the image pixels. We show that the 30 reconstruction by deformable cylinders is accurate and robust due to the spatial data coherence in the considered volumetric IVUS image. The main clinic utility of the stent and vessel reconstruction by deformable’ cylinders consists of its possibility to visualize and to assess the optimal stent introduction.

Abstract: Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (Cardiac MRI) has become a gold standard diagnostic technique for the assessment of cardiac mechanics, allowing the non-invasive calculation of left ventric- ular long axis longitudinal shortening (LVLS) and absolute myocardial torsion (AMT) between basal and apical left ventricular slices, a movement directly related to the helicoidal anatomic disposition of the myocardial fibers. The aim of this study is to determine AMT and LVLS behaviour and normal values from a group of healthy subjects. A group of 21 healthy volunteers (15 males) (age: 23–55 y.o., mean:30.7 ± 7.5) were prospectively included in an obser- vational study by Cardiac MRI. Left ventricular rotation (degrees) was calculated by custom-made software (Harmonic Phase Flow) in consecutive LV short axis planes tagged cine-MRI sequences. AMT was determined from the difference between basal and apical planes LV rotations. LVLS (%) was determined from the LV longitudinal and horizontal axis cine-MRI images. All the 21 cases studied were interpretable, although in three cases the value of the LV apical rotation could not be determined. The mean rotation of the basal and apical planes at end-systole were -3.71° ± 0.84° and 6.73° ± 1.69° (n:18) respectively, resulting in a LV mean AMT of 10.48° ± 1.63° (n:18). End-systolic mean LVLS was 19.07 ± 2.71%. Cardiac MRI allows for the calculation of AMT and LVLS, fundamental functional components of the ventricular twist mechanics conditioned, in turn, by the anatomical helical layout of the myocardial fibers. These values provide complementary information about systolic ventricular function in relation to the traditional parameters used in daily practice.

Abstract: This paper deals with the recognition of symbols and struc- tural textures in architectural plans using string matching techniques. A plan is represented by an attributed graph whose nodes represent characteristic points and whose edges represent segments. Symbols and textures can be seen as a set of regions, i.e. closed loops in the graph, with a particular arrangement. The search for a symbol involves a graph matching between the regions of a model graph and the regions of the graph representing the document. Discriminating a texture means a clus- tering of neighbouring regions of this graph. Both procedures involve a similarity measure between graph regions. A string codification is used to represent the sequence of outlining edges of a region. Thus, the simila- rity between two regions is defined in terms of the string edit distance between their boundary strings. The use of string matching allows the recognition method to work also under presence of distortion.