• Journal of Computational Design and Engineering
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• v.1 no.4
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• pp.272-288
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• 2014

This paper presents a two-step, semi-automated method for reconstructing a three-dimensional (3D) shape of the prostate from a 3D transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) image. While the method has been developed for prostate ultrasound imaging, it can potentially be applicable to any other organ of the body and other imaging modalities. The proposed method takes as input a 3D TRUS image and generates a watertight 3D surface model of the prostate. In the first step, the system lets the user visualize and navigate through the input volumetric image by displaying cross sectional views oriented in arbitrary directions. The user then draws partial/full contours on selected cross sectional views. In the second step, the method automatically generates a watertight 3D surface of the prostate by fitting a deformable spherical template to the set of user-specified contours. Since the method allows the user to select the best cross-sectional directions and draw only clearly recognizable partial or full contours, the user can avoid time-consuming and inaccurate guesswork on where prostate contours are located. By avoiding the usage of noisy, incomprehensible portions of the TRUS image, the proposed method yields more accurate prostate shapes than conventional methods that demand complete cross-sectional contours selected manually, or automatically using an image processing tool. Our experiments confirmed that a 3D watertight surface of the prostate can be generated within five minutes even from a volumetric image with a high level of speckles and shadow noises.

• Journal of Broadcast Engineering
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• v.13 no.6
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• pp.962-965
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• 2008

2-D shape descriptors, which are vectors representing characteristics of shapes, enable comparison and classification of shapes and are mainly applied to image and 3-D model retrieval. Existing descriptors have limitations that they only describe shapes of single closed contours or lack in precision, making it difficult to be applied to shapes with multiple contours. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a new shape descriptor called Multi-Curvature-Scale Space that can be applied to shapes with multiple contours. Specifically, we represent the topology of the sub-contours in the multi-contour along with Curvature-Scale Space descriptors to represent the shapes of each sub-contours. Also, by allowing the weight of each component to be controlled when computing the distance between descriptors the weight, we deal with ambiguities in measuring similarity between shapes. Results of various experiments that prove the effectiveness of proposed descriptor are presented.

• Journal of KIISE:Computing Practices and Letters
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• v.9 no.6
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• pp.712-717
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• 2003

A novel multi-snake is proposed for efficient extraction of multi-object contours from a natural scene. An NTGST(noise-tolerant generalized symmetry transform) is used as a context-free attention operator to detect and locate multiple objects from a complex background and then the snake points are automatically initialized nearby the contour of each detected object using symmetry map of the NTGST before multiple snakes are introduced. These procedures solve the knotty subjects of automatic snake initialization and simultaneous extraction of multi-object contours in conventional snake algorithms. Because the snake points are initialized nearby the actual contour of each object, as close as possible, contours with high convexity and/or concavity can be easily extracted. The experimental results show that the proposed method can efficiently extract multi-object contours from a noisy and complex background of natural scenes.

• Proceedings of the Korean Society of Computational and Applied Mathematics Conference
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• 2003.09a
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• pp.4.2-4
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• 2003

In this paper, we describe how to approximate the solutions of partial differential equations by bicubic spline functions whose interpolation errors at non-grid points are smaller in general than those by linear interpolations of the original solution at grid points. We show that the bicubic spline function can be represented exactly or approximately by a fuzzy system, and that the resulting fuzzy rule table shows the contours of the solution function. Thus, the fuzzy rule table is identified as a digital image and the contours in the rule table provide approximate contours of the solution of partial differential equations. Several illustrative examples are included.

• Transactions of the Korean Society of Mechanical Engineers A
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.40-47
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• 2004

This paper proposes a three-axis coupling controller designed to improve the contouring accuracy in machining of 3D nonlinear contours. The proposed coupling controller is based on an innovative 3D contour error model and a PID control law. The novel contour error model provides almost exact calculation of contour errors in real-time for arbitrary contours and can be integrated with any type of existing interpolator. In the proposed method, three axes of motion are coordinated by the proposed coupling controller along with a proportional controller for each axis. The proposed contour error model and coupling controller are evaluated through computer simulations. The simulation results show that the proposed 3-axis coupling controller with the new contour error model substantially can improve the contouring accuracy by order of magnitude compared with the existing uncoupled controllers in high-speed machining of nonlinear contours.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.146-150
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• 2008

In order to study cortical properties in human, it is necessary to obtain an accurate and explicit representation of the cortical surface in individual subjects. Among many approaches, surface-based method that reconstructs a 3-D model from contour lines on cross-section images is widely used. The conventional method detects match points of contours using the minimum straight distance between any pair of contour points which lie on different contours. Then, it generates a triangle strip. In general, however, it might yield small mismatches between contours in case of brain due to complex anatomical structures. In this paper, therefore, we present an improved method for tilting operation that uses the curvature values calculated from surface information. The usefulness of the proposed method has been verified using brain image.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1997 no.05
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• pp.79-83
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• 1997

A new computation algorithm to detect the intimal and adventitial contours from the intravascular images was developed. An image processing on gray level image was used. It uses arrays of pixels in each radial lines on the images. A Low-Pass filters was adopted at first step for one dimensional image processing. Some other calculations techniques were developed to increase the accuracy of automatically detected contours. The program implemented in C++ as a window95-base application.

• Journal of Information Processing Systems
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• v.7 no.3
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• pp.519-530
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• 2011

A Snake is an active contour for representing object contours. Traditional snake algorithms are often used to represent the contour of a single object. However, if there is more than one object in the image, the snake model must be adaptive to determine the corresponding contour of each object. Also, the previous initialized snake contours risk getting the wrong results when tracking multiple objects in successive frames due to the weak topology changes. To overcome this problem, in this paper, we present a new snake method for efficiently tracking contours of multiple objects. Our proposed algorithm can provide a straightforward approach for snake contour rapid splitting and connection, which usually cannot be gracefully handled by traditional snakes. Experimental results of various test sequence images with multiple objects have shown good performance, which proves that the proposed method is both effective and accurate.

• 한국정보디스플레이학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2003.07a
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• pp.730-733
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• 2003

Dual coding technique is one of the popular techniques to reduce the dynamic false contours on PDP. Subfield pattern is a key factor affecting the performance of dual coding technique. In this paper, an optimum subfield selection method based on genetic algorithm is proposed. Two types of string structures are defined to account for all the possible configurations of the dual coding subfield patterns. Genetic operators are proposed for optimization of dual coding subfield pattern. Quantitative measures to describe degrees of dynamic false contours and checkerboard patterns are defined. Experimental results indicate that dual coding subfield pattern that is determined by proposed method reduces dynamic false contours and checkerboard patterns.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.32B no.8
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• pp.1074-1084
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• 1995

In this paper, we investigate edge extraction and segmentation of range images. We first discuss problems that arise in the conventional region-based segmentation methods and edge-based ones using principal curvatures, then we propose an edge-based algorithm. In the proposed algorithm, we extract edge contours by using the Gaussian filter and directional derivatives, and segment a range image based on extracted edge contours, Also we present the problem that arises in the conventional thresholding, then we propose a new threshold selection method. To solve the problem that local maxima of the first- and second- order derivatives gather near step edges, we first find closed roof edge contours, fill the step edge region, and finally thin edge boundaries. Computer simulations with several range images show that the proposed method yields better performance than the conventional one.