A method of automated landmark generation for automated 3D PDM construction

A previous publication has described a method of pairwise three-dimensional (3D) surface correspondence for the automated generation of landmarks on a set of examples from a class of shape (A.D. Brett, A. Hill, C.J. Taylor, A method of 3D surface correspondence for automated landmark generation, in: 8th British Machine Vision Conference, Essex, England, September 1997, pp 709-718). In this paper we describe a set of improved algorithms which give more accurate and more robust results. We show how the pairwise corresponder can be used in an extension of an existing framework for establishing dense correspondences between a set of training examples (A. Hill, A.D. Brett, C.J. Taylor, Automatic landmark identification using a new method of non-rigid correspondence, in: J. Duncan, G. Gindi, (Eds.), 15th Conference on Information Processing in Medical Imaging, Poulteney, VT, Springer, Berlin, 1997, pp. 483-488) to build a 3D Point Distribution Model. The framework relies upon additional algorithms for the production of surface paths between vertices on a polyhedral mesh, and these are described. Example statistical models are shown for both smooth synthetic data and the left lateral ventricle of the brain, a complex biological shape which demonstrates considerable variation between individuals. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.