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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, Eduard Fernandez-Nofrerias, Petia Radeva, & Enric Marti. (2009). Approaching Artery Rigid Dynamics in IVUS. TMI - IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging, 28(11), 1670–1680.
Abstract: Tissue biomechanical properties (like strain and stress) are playing an increasing role in diagnosis and long-term treatment of intravascular coronary diseases. Their assessment strongly relies on estimation of vessel wall deformation. Since intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) sequences allow visualizing vessel morphology and reflect its dynamics, this technique represents a useful tool for evaluation of tissue mechanical properties. Image misalignment introduced by vessel-catheter motion is a major artifact for a proper tracking of tissue deformation. In this work, we focus on compensating and assessing IVUS rigid in-plane motion due to heart beating. Motion parameters are computed by considering both the vessel geometry and its appearance in the image. Continuum mechanics laws serve to introduce a novel score measuring motion reduction in in vivo sequences. Synthetic experiments validate the proposed score as measure of motion parameters accuracy; whereas results in in vivo pullbacks show the reliability of the presented methodologies in clinical cases.
Keywords: Fourier analysis; intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) dynamics; longitudinal motion; quality measures; tissue deformation.
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, Jaume Garcia, & Enric Marti. (2011). Image-based Cardiac Phase Retrieval in Intravascular Ultrasound Sequences. T-UFFC - IEEE Transactions on Ultrasonics, Ferroelectrics and Frequency Control, 58(1), 60–72.
Abstract: Longitudinal motion during in vivo pullbacks acquisition of intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) sequences is a major artifact for 3-D exploring of coronary arteries. Most current techniques are based on the electrocardiogram (ECG) signal to obtain a gated pullback without longitudinal motion by using specific hardware or the ECG signal itself. We present an image-based approach for cardiac phase retrieval from coronary IVUS sequences without an ECG signal. A signal reflecting cardiac motion is computed by exploring the image intensity local mean evolution. The signal is filtered by a band-pass filter centered at the main cardiac frequency. Phase is retrieved by computing signal extrema. The average frame processing time using our setup is 36 ms. Comparison to manually sampled sequences encourages a deeper study comparing them to ECG signals.
Keywords: 3-D exploring; ECG; band-pass filter; cardiac motion; cardiac phase retrieval; coronary arteries; electrocardiogram signal; image intensity local mean evolution; image-based cardiac phase retrieval; in vivo pullbacks acquisition; intravascular ultrasound sequences; longitudinal motion; signal extrema; time 36 ms; band-pass filters; biomedical ultrasonics; cardiovascular system; electrocardiography; image motion analysis; image retrieval; image sequences; medical image processing; ultrasonic imaging
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, & Petia Radeva. (2005). A Deterministic-Statistical Strategy for Adventitia Segmentation in IVUS images.
Abstract: A useful tool for some specific studies in cardiac disease diagnosis is vessel plaque assessment by analysis of IVUS sequences. Manual detection of luminal (inner) and media-adventitia (external) vessel borders is the main activity of physicians in the process of lumen narrowing (plaque) quantification. Difficult definition of vessel border descriptors, as well as, shades, artifacts and blurred signal response due to ultrasound physical properties troubles automated adventitia segmentation. In order to efficiently approach such a complex problem, we propose blending advanced anisotropic filtering operators and statistical classification techniques into a vessel border modelling strategy. Our systematic statistical analysis shows that the reported adventitia detection achieves an accuracy in the range of inter-observer variability regardless of plaque nature, vessel geometry and incomplete vessel borders.
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, & Albert Teis. (2007). How Do Conservation Laws Define a Motion Suppression Score in In-Vivo Ivus Sequences? In Proc. IEEE Ultrasonics Symp (pp. 2231–2234).
Abstract: Evaluation of arterial tissue biomechanics for diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular diseases is an active research field in the biomedical imaging processing area. IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) is a unique tool for such assessment since it reflects tissue morphology and deformation. A proper quantification and visualization of both properties is hindered by vessel structures misalignments introduced by cardiac dynamics. This has encouraged development of IVUS motion compensation techniques. However, there is a lack of an objective evaluation of motion reduction ensuring a reliable clinical application This work reports a novel score, the Conservation of Density Rate (CDR), for validation of motion compensation in in-vivo pullbacks. Synthetic experiments validate the proposed score as measure of motion parameters accuracy; while results in in vivo pullbacks show its reliability in clinical cases.
Keywords: validation standards; IVUS motion compensation; conservation laws.
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Monica Mitiko, Sergio Shiguemi, & Debora Gil. (2010). A validation protocol for assessing cardiac phase retrieval in IntraVascular UltraSound. In Computing in Cardiology (Vol. 37, pp. 899–902). IEEE.
Abstract: A good reliable approach to cardiac triggering is of utmost importance in obtaining accurate quantitative results of atherosclerotic plaque burden from the analysis of IntraVascular UltraSound. Although, in the last years, there has been an increase in research of methods for retrospective gating, there is no general consensus in a validation protocol. Many methods are based on quality assessment of longitudinal cuts appearance and those reporting quantitative numbers do not follow a standard protocol. Such heterogeneity in validation protocols makes faithful comparison across methods a difficult task. We propose a validation protocol based on the variability of the retrieved cardiac phase and explore the capability of several quality measures for quantifying such variability. An ideal detector, suitable for its application in clinical practice, should produce stable phases. That is, it should always sample the same cardiac cycle fraction. In this context, one should measure the variability (variance) of a candidate sampling with respect a ground truth (reference) sampling, since the variance would indicate how spread we are aiming a target. In order to quantify the deviation between the sampling and the ground truth, we have considered two quality scores reported in the literature: signed distance to the closest reference sample and distance to the right of each reference sample. We have also considered the residuals of the regression line of reference against candidate sampling. The performance of the measures has been explored on a set of synthetic samplings covering different cardiac cycle fractions and variabilities. From our simulations, we conclude that the metrics related to distances are sensitive to the shift considered while the residuals are robust against fraction and variabilities as far as one can establish a pair-wise correspondence between candidate and reference. We will further investigate the impact of false positive and negative detections in experimental data.
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, David Rotger, & Debora Gil. (2008). Image-based ECG sampling of IVUS sequences. In Proc. IEEE Ultrasonics Symp. IUS 2008 (pp. 1330–1333).
Abstract: Longitudinal motion artifacts in IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) sequences hinders a properly 3D reconstruction and vessel measurements. Most of current techniques base on the ECG signal to obtain a gated pullback without the longitudinal artifact by using a specific hardware or the ECG signal itself. The potential of IVUS images processing for phase retrieval still remains little explored. In this paper, we present a fast forward image-based algorithm to approach ECG sampling. Inspired on the fact that maximum and minimum lumen areas are related to end-systole and end-diastole, our cardiac phase retrieval is based on the analysis of tissue density of mass along the sequence. The comparison between automatic and manual phase retrieval (0.07 ± 0.07 mm. of error) encourages a deep validation contrasting with ECG signals.
Keywords: Longitudinal Motion; Image-based ECG-gating; Fourier analysis
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Aura Hernandez-Sabate, Debora Gil, J. Mauri, & Petia Radeva. (2006). Reducing cardiac motion in IVUS sequences. In Proceeding of Computers in Cardiology (Vol. 33, pp. 685–688).
Abstract: Cardiac vessel displacement is a main artifact in IVUS sequences. It hinders visualization of the main structures in an appropriate orientation and alignment and affects extracting vessel measurements. In this paper, we present a novel approach for image sequence alignment based on spectral analysis, which removes rigid dynamics, preserving at the same time the vessel geometry. First, we suppress the translation by taking, for each frame, the center of mass of the image as origin of coordinates. In polar coordinates with such point as origin, the rotation appears as a horizontal displacement. The translation induces a phase shift in the Fourier coefficients of two consecutive polar images. We estimate the phase by adjusting a regression plane to the phases of the principal frequencies. Experiments show that the presented strategy suppress cardiac motion regardless of the acquisition device. 1.
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Ole Vilhelm-Larsen, Petia Radeva, & Enric Marti. (1995). Guidelines for choosing optimal parameters of elasticity for snakes. In Computer Analysis Of Images And Patterns (Vol. 970, pp. 106–113). LNCS.
Abstract: This paper proposes a guidance in the process of choosing and using the parameters of elasticity of a snake in order to obtain a precise segmentation. A new two step procedure is defined based on upper and lower bounds on the parameters. Formulas, by which these bounds can be calculated for real images where parts of the contour may be missing, are presented. Experiments on segmentation of bone structures in X-ray images have verified the usefulness of the new procedure.
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Ole Larsen, Petia Radeva, & Enric Marti. (1995). Bounds on the optimal elasticity parameters for a snake. Image Analysis and Processing, , 37–42.
Abstract: This paper develops a formalism by which an estimate for the upper and lower bounds for the elasticity parameters for a snake can be obtained. Objects different in size and shape give rise to different bounds. The bounds can be obtained based on an analysis of the shape of the object of interest. Experiments on synthetic images show a good correlation between the estimated behaviour of the snake and the one actually observed. Experiments on real X-ray images show that the parameters for optimal segmentation lie within the estimated bounds.
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Jaime Lopez-Krahe, Josep Llados, & Enric Marti. (2000). Architectural Floor Plan Analysis (Robert B. Fisher, Ed.). University of Edinburgh.
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Josep Llados, Horst Bunke, & Enric Marti. (1997). Finding rotational symmetries by cyclic string matching. PRL - Pattern recognition letters, 18(14), 1435–1442.
Abstract: Symmetry is an important shape feature. In this paper, a simple and fast method to detect perfect and distorted rotational symmetries of 2D objects is described. The boundary of a shape is polygonally approximated and represented as a string. Rotational symmetries are found by cyclic string matching between two identical copies of the shape string. The set of minimum cost edit sequences that transform the shape string to a cyclically shifted version of itself define the rotational symmetry and its order. Finally, a modification of the algorithm is proposed to detect reflectional symmetries. Some experimental results are presented to show the reliability of the proposed algorithm
Keywords: Rotational symmetry; Reflectional symmetry; String matching
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Josep Llados, Horst Bunke, & Enric Marti. (1997). Using Cyclic String Matching to Find Rotational and Reflectional Symmetries in Shapes. In Intelligent Robots: Sensing, Modeling and Planning (pp. 164–179). World Scientific Press.
Abstract: Dagstuhl Workshop
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Josep Llados, Jaime Lopez-Krahe, & Enric Marti. (1997). A system to understand hand-drawn floor plans using subgraph isomorphism and Hough transform. In Machine Vision and Applications (Vol. 10, pp. 150–158).
Abstract: Presently, man-machine interface development is a widespread research activity. A system to understand hand drawn architectural drawings in a CAD environment is presented in this paper. To understand a document, we have to identify its building elements and their structural properties. An attributed graph structure is chosen as a symbolic representation of the input document and the patterns to recognize in it. An inexact subgraph isomorphism procedure using relaxation labeling techniques is performed. In this paper we focus on how to speed up the matching. There is a building element, the walls, characterized by a hatching pattern. Using a straight line Hough transform (SLHT)-based method, we recognize this pattern, characterized by parallel straight lines, and remove from the input graph the edges belonging to this pattern. The isomorphism is then applied to the remainder of the input graph. When all the building elements have been recognized, the document is redrawn, correcting the inaccurate strokes obtained from a hand-drawn input.
Keywords: Line drawings – Hough transform – Graph matching – CAD systems – Graphics recognition
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Josep Llados, Jaime Lopez-Krahe, Gemma Sanchez, & Enric Marti. (2000). Interprétation de cartes et plans par mise en correspondance de graphes de attributs. In 12 Congrès Francophone AFRIF–AFIA (Vol. 3, pp. 225–234).
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Josep Llados, & Enric Marti. (1999). A graph-edit algorithm for hand-drawn graphical document recognition and their automatic introduction into CAD systems. Machine Graphics & Vision, 8, 195–211.
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