Abstract: In this paper we introduce a novel application of the diffusion tensor for anisotropic image processing. The Anisotropic Contour Completion (ACC) we suggest consists in extending the characteristic function of the open curve by means of a degenerated diffusion tensor that prevents any diffusion in the normal direction. We show that ACC is equivalent to a dilation with a continuous elliptic structural element that takes into account the local orientation of the contours to be closed. Experiments on contours extracted from real images show that ACC produces shapes able to adapt to any curve in an active contour framework. 1.

Abstract: There is a large range of image processing applications that act on an input sequence of image frames that are continuously received. Throughput is a key performance measure to be optimized when execu- ting them. In this paper we propose a new task replication methodology for optimizing throughput for an image processing application in the field of medicine. The results show that by applying the proposed methodo- logy we are able to achieve the desired throughput in all cases, in such a way that the input frames can be processed at any given rate.

Abstract: IntraVascular UltraSound (IVUS) imaging is a useful tool in diagnosis of cardiac diseases since sequences completely show the morphology of coronary vessels. Vessel borders detection, especially the external adventitia layer, plays a central role in morphological measures and, thus, their segmentation feeds development of medical imaging techniques. Deterministic approaches fail to yield optimal results due to the large amount of IVUS artifacts and vessel borders descriptors. We propose using classification techniques to learn the set of descriptors and parameters that best detect vessel borders. Statistical hypothesis test on the error between automated detections and manually traced borders by 4 experts show that our detections keep within inter-observer variability.

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.

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.