MENTORS

Prof. Gabor Fichtinger (gabor@cs.queensu.ca)

Csaba Pinter (pinter@cs.queensu.ca)

Andras Lasso (lasso@cs.queensu.ca)

BACKGROUND AND SIGNIFICANCE 

Planning of medical procedures, such as radiation therapy or minimally invasive interventions, almost always require delineation of organs and other important structures by closed curves. Most frequently this is performed manually, by drawing contours around the objects on several two-dimensional cross-sectional images.

Typically the contours change smoothly between adjacent image slices, therefore it could be possible to speed up the contouring process by drawing contours manually only on a limited subset of images and generating contours between the manually contoursed slices by interpolation.

The contour interpolation method could be also used for generating visually appealing and accurate surface models from sparse manually defined contour sets.

PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• Review methods that have been proposed for contour interpolation or two-dimensional shape morphing, such as:
  • http://www.geometrictools.com/Documentation/MedialBasedMorphing.pdf
  • http://www.ceremade.dauphine.fr/~cohen/mypapers/GabrielidesCohenSSVM09.pdf
  • http://books.google.ca/books?id=I50DB1GoweoC&pg=PA124&lpg=PA124&dq=morph...
  • http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1530222
  • http://www.vtk.org/doc/nightly/html/classvtkVoxelContoursToSurfaceFilter.html
• Implement a chosen algorithm (preferably in C++, but also acceptable in Matlab)
• Test and optimize the algorithm
• Optional: integrate the algorithm into SlicerRT a software package for radiation therapy researchers

• Analysis, manipulation, and visualization of geometric objects in Matlab or C++, using open-source toolkits
• Collaboration with a multidisciplinary group of medical imaging algorithm researchers, software developers, and clinicians
• Using professional tools and methodologies for algorithm research and software development

BACKGROUND REQUIRED

• A curious mind and always-ready-to-try-new-things attitude
• Matlab or C++ programming experience
• Interest in computational geometry