Image Science Group - BIWI

Projects
Last Update: 29-Mar-1999
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Main Research Areas, Organizational Structure:

The Image Science Division works on the computer-based interpretation of 2D and 3D image data sets from conventional and non-conventional image sources. We treat the complete cycle from signals to their interpretation, and to the resulting action. It is our objective to develop universal concepts and methods, and it is our strategy to let difficult applications drive our research and development. Applications are the touchstone for the true value of a theory and very often the source of unexpected results wich, in turn, frequently open up new research directions. A new aspect of our work is the modeling, simulation and visualization of the underlying scene and processes; a domain where Computer Vision meets Scientific Visualization.

The following description of the research projects is structured according to the working groups of the Image Science Division:


Medical Image Analysis and Visualization

Portal Imaging

Portal Imaging - a clinical research project funded by the cancer research of the canton Zürich to improve quality assurance in radiotherapy treatment. Electronic Portal Imaging Devices (EPID) enable us to register megavoltage X-ray images of the treatment field during irradiation. These portal images are then analyzed using a high precision and area-based matching algorithm in order to measure patient setup deviations.

PET-MRI

PET-MRI. Further information is available via email.

BIOMORPH

BIOMORPH - a EU BIOMED-2 Project: Development and Validation of Techniques for Brain Morphometry, a cooperative effort of 6 European academic and clincal partners.

Lesion Evolution in Multiple Sclerosis

Lesion Evolution in Multiple Sclerosis - an ETH-KBS project: The characterization of MS lesion development is mostly based purely on the spatial pattern of lesions and its variation within the measured time period. In most cases even only very simple characteristics of this pattern (as e.g. the total lesion load) is used to find correlation between clinical and radiological findings. Lesion development is a complex spatio-temporal process, consequently methods, concentrating exclusively on the spatial or temporal aspects of it cannot be expected to provide optimal results. The major goal of our work is to develop adequate mathematical frameworks for integrated spatio-temporal lesion models and to test their power for better explanation of clinical and immunological findings. Further information is available via email.

Prostesis Migration

Prostesis Migration. Further information is available via email.

Interactive Segmentation

Interactive Segmentation: In spite of considerable efforts during the past decades, image segmentation is still one of the major bottlenecks in medical image analysis. Neither purely manual nor fully automatic approaches are appropriate for the correct, efficient and reproducible identification of organs in 3D radiological data volumes. Goal of this pilot project is the exploration of the power of new man-machine interfacing paradigms as offered by virtual reality (including graphics, audio and haptics), e.g., resulting in new closed-loop segmentation systems, allowing an optimal cooperation between computer-based image analysis algorithms and human operators. Further information is available via email.

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Shape Modeling and Visualization

LaSSo

LaSSo (LAparoscopic Surgery SimulatOr): The basic idea of laparoscopic surgery is to minimize damage to healthy tissue while reaching the actual surgical location. This results in major gain in patient recovery after operation. The price for this advantage is paid by the surgeon, who loses direct contact with the operation site. The operations are usually performed under mono-scopic vision and highly restricted manipulative freedom, which requires very special skills from the surgeon. Up to now no appropriate training devices are available, which would allow to fully acquire these skills before actual intervention on patients. The goal of the project is the development of a laparoscopic surgery simulator device using the techniques of virtual reality which provides nearly realistic training environment.

Bone Morphometry

Bone Morphometry. Further information is available via email.

3D-Skeletons

3D-Skeletons: Skeletonization is an appealing way to describe and characterize object shape. While computer generation of 2D skeletons is basically solved, the calculation of skeletons of large discrete 3D objects poses serious theoretical and technical difficulties. The goal of the project is the development of procedures for the generation of skeletons of large, complex natural (mostly anatomical) objects using computational geometrical techniques. The generated skeletons can then be used e.g. for recognition of organs in 3D radiological image data. The analysis of the sulcogyral structure of the human cerebral cortex and brain atlas matching are used as prototypical application examples. Further information is available via email.

CONQUEST

CONQUEST - (Clinical Oncology Network for Quality in European Standards of Treatment) - a joint European project with several academic and clinical partners to develop generic, multimedia-based, quality assurance systems which can be rapidly disseminated by telematics to all relevant treatment sites so that variations in cancer treatment outcome can be reduced. The swiss partners will provide anatomical knowledge representation tools for CT data segmentation in treatment planning for prostate cancer irradiation.

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Image Understanding

AMOBE

AMOBE - (Automation of Digital Terrain Model Generation and Man-Made Object Extraction from Aerial Images) - a 3-year ETH project in collaboration with the Institute for Geodesy and Photogrammetry. The purpose of the project is to develop semi-automatic and automatic methods for extracting quantitative 3D information on man-made objects from aerial images.

MINORA

MINORA - (MINiaturized Optical Range camera for safety, surveillance and automotive Applications) - a 4-year project in the OPTIQUE II programme of the ETH Council in collaboration with several academic and industrial partners. The purpose of the project is to develop range cameras based on optical ranging techniques (time-of-flight or AM laser radar), with which a large part of today's safety, surveillance and automotive applications can be solved.

COGNIS

COGNIS - (COmputer Guided Nannofossil Identification System) - a 3-year ETH project in collaboration with the Institute of Geology. The purpose of the project is to develop time-efficient semi-automatic and automatic methods to find, measure, identify and count micrometer-sized coccoliths in Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images from ocean sediment specimens.

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Feature and Model Extraction

Image Indexing

Image Indexing - an ETH Project: The project "an integrated image analysis and retrieval system" is a joint project with the computer systems and the database group of the Computer Science Department of the ETH. The vision group studies which visual features can support efficient indexing into an image database. The development of the appropriate feature extraction algorithms is examined, as well.

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Remote Sensing

Image Archive

RSIA - (Remote Sensing Image Archive) - an ETH Project: The goal of the project is to intensify research activities in the field of content-based picture retrieval from remote sensing image databases. We investigate the use of general, robust image features to be used as indexes in a relational database. In contrast to similar approaches, these features do not characterize application specific aspects of the images but aim at a global, signal-oriented description of the data. We intend to perform the process of information extraction in a full Bayesian approach. The data handling strategy involves multiresolution signal representation based on the wavelet transform. This choice enables efficient image transmission techniques and supports the signal-oriented query methods.

New Methods for Runoff Modeling

New Methods for Runoff Modeling - a Swiss National Foundation Project: the goal of the project is to simulate the effect of a possible climate warming on the areal extent of the seasonal snowcover, the glacier retreat resp. progress and on the runoff regime in the Swiss alps. The concept of the project requires, that GIS as well as remote sensing techniques are involved in combination with the runoff model SRM-ETH.

CARTESIAN

CARTESIAN - (Cost effective Application of Remote sensing to enviromenTal aspects of ski rEgions; a Ski region monItoring and mAnagement informatioN system) - a CEO Project: this project aims at developing a methodology based on satellite data to provide a cost-effective assistance in the monitoring and sustainable maintenance of ski-regions. This includes issues as: Environmental aspects such as vegetation indices, landscape changes, snow cover, socio- economic issues such as tourism potential and economic development.

Model Based Snow Segmentation

Model Based Remote Sensing Image Analysis for Snow Segmentation in Mountainous Areas - a Swiss National Foundation Project: Snow segmentation in remote sensing images of mountainous areas is not a trivial problem. Shadows, reflections and atmospheric effects make the differentiation of snow, ice and ground very difficult, especially in regions with rough relieves. The present project aims to develop a new model driven method to perform a highly accurate segmentation of snow in optical and SAR remote sensing images. Probabilistic models and estimation theory concepts represent the basics of this project. Special attention will be given also to information fusion from these different sensors and/or channels. Further information is available via email.

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