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Published on: May 24, 2021
3D Hermite Transform Optical Flow Estimation inLeft Ventricle CT Sequences
Carlos Mira1, Ernesto Moya-Albor2, Boris Escalante-Ramirez1
1Facultad de Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Ciudad de México 04510, Mexico.
Insights
This study introduces a novel 3D optical flow algorithm for analyzing cardiac movement, improving the understanding of heart wall abnormalities and aiding specialists in diagnosing heart disease. The new method demonstrates robust performance and accuracy in cardiac motion analysis.
Area of Science:
- Medical Imaging
- Biomedical Engineering
- Computational Cardiology
Background:
- Heart disease is a leading global cause of mortality.
- Traditional 2D cardiac movement analysis is limited; 3D analysis is crucial for understanding complex heart dynamics.
- Accurate algorithms are needed to interpret cardiac motion and identify wall abnormalities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a novel 3D optical flow algorithm for precise cardiac movement analysis.
- To utilize the steered Hermite transform (SHT) for decomposing cardiac volumes, inspired by the human vision system.
- To evaluate the algorithm's robustness, accuracy, and clinical applicability in 3D + time cardiac CT volumes.
Main Methods:
- Developed a differential optical flow approach using the steered Hermite transform (SHT).
- Applied the algorithm to 3D + time cardiac computed tomography (CT) volumes and left ventricular segmentation.
- Assessed robustness to noise and evaluated accuracy using forward reconstruction interpolation errors.
Main Results:
- The 3D algorithm demonstrated high accuracy, with interpolation errors below 0.1 when compared to a similar 3D method.
- The algorithm showed robustness to noise with good results.
- Graphical representations clearly depicted the contraction and dilation characteristics of the left ventricle via 3D optical flow.
Conclusions:
- The proposed 3D optical flow algorithm accurately captures cardiac movement in 3D + time data.
- This method offers a valuable tool for specialists to understand cardiac dynamics and identify potential heart wall abnormalities.
- The approach shows promise for enhancing the diagnosis and study of heart diseases.
Abstract:
Heart diseases are the most important causes of death in the world and over the years, thestudy of cardiac movement has been carried out mainly in two dimensions, however, it is important toconsider that the deformations due to the movement of the heart occur in a three-dimensional space.The 3D + t analysis allows to describe most of the motions of the heart, for example, the twistingmotion that takes place on every beat cycle that allows us identifying abnormalities of the heartwalls. Therefore, it is necessary to develop algorithms that help specialists understand the cardiacmovement. In this work, we developed a new approach to determine the cardiac movement inthree dimensions using a differential optical flow approach in which we use the steered Hermitetransform (SHT) which allows us to decompose cardiac volumes taking advantage of it as a model ofthe human vision system (HVS). Our proposal was tested in complete cardiac computed tomography(CT) volumes ( 3D + t), as well as its respective left ventricular segmentation. The robustness tonoise was tested with good results. The evaluation of the results was carried out through errors inforwarding reconstruction, from the volume at time t to time t + 1 using the optical flow obtained(interpolation errors). The parameters were tuned extensively. In the case of the 2D algorithm, theinterpolation errors and normalized interpolation errors are very close and below the values reportedin ground truth flows. In the case of the 3D algorithm, the results were compared with another similarmethod in 3D and the interpolation errors remained below 0.1. These results of interpolation errorsfor complete cardiac volumes and the left ventricle are shown graphically for clarity. Finally, a seriesof graphs are observed where the characteristic of contraction and dilation of the left ventricle isevident through the representation of the 3D optical flow.
