Multi-resolution parameterization of meshes for improved surface based registration

Jaume, S. Ferrant, M. Warfield, S. Macq, Benoît [UCL]

Common problems in medical image analysis involve surface-based registration. The applications range from atlas matching to tracking an object's boundary in an image sequence, or segmenting anatomical structures out of images. Most proposed solutions are based on deformable surface algorithms. The main problem of such methods is that the local accuracy of the matching must often be traded off against global smoothness of the surface in order to reach global convergence of the deformation process. Our contribution is to first build a multi-resolution (MR) surface from a reference segmented image, and then match this surface onto the target image in an MR fashion using a deformable surface-like algorithm. As we proceed from lower to higher resolution, the smoothing effect of the deformable surface is more and more localized, and the surface gets closer and closer to the target boundary. We present initial results of our algorithm for atlas registration onto brain MRI showing improved convergence and accuracy over classical deformable surface methods.