Deformable Models in Medical Image Analysis

Deformable models are a powerful, physics-based technique for representing, reconstructing, recognizing and manipulating nonrigid curves, surfaces and solids from their images and image sequence. As noninvasive medical imaging technologies continue their rapid development, techniques for reconstructing three-dimensional deformable models are becoming increasingly important in the medical field. "Deformable Models in Medical Image Analysis" focuses on the theoretical and practical aspects of deformable models. The book concentrates on recent developments in novel deformable modelling techniques and on the use of medical images to illustrate the capabilities of their algorithms. The first part of the text is devoted to the theoretical background of deformable models and illustrates their general applicability to medical imaging. The second part deals with segmentation and reconstruction. The final part concentrates on motion analysis and tracking. The book explores the wide range of medical image analysis problems, biological structures and diagnostic issues that show the important role that deformable models play in medical image analysis. It illustrates the various techniques based on deformable models, compares their advantages and pitfalls, and brings together the best of all approaches. The book looks at deformable models techniques for building clinically oriented systems used in validation, and their eventual deployment in routing clinical practices.