• Proceedings of the Korea Contents Association Conference
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• 2003.11a
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• pp.313-317
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• 2003

This paper suggested the initial edge map through the pre-processing of vague image before apply the GVF snake algorithm. The reason obtain for detail object outline and time efficiency GVF snake algorithm feasible extracted concave edge but mistake interested object edge for the around others. So it need to trim about the object around edges. The method is using Pixel morphological reconstruction, edge extraction mask and threshoding. The result, defend fallen local minimum edge energy and reduce iteration.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.439-445
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• 2007

GVF can solve two difficulties with Snakes that are on setting initial contour and have a hard time processing into boundary concavities. But GVF takes much longer computation time than the existing Snakes because of their edge map and partial derivatives. Therefore this paper analyzed the computation time between GVF and Snakes. As a simulation result, both algorithms took almost similar computation time in simple image. In real images, GVF took about two times computation than Snakes.

• Journal of KIISE:Software and Applications
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.95-104
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• 2006

The Gradient Vector Flow (GVF) snake or active contour model offers the best performance for image segmentation. However, there are problems in classical snake models such as the limited capture range and the slow progress into concavity. This paper presents a new method for enhancing the performance of the GVF snake model by extending the external force fields from the neighboring fields and using a modified smoothing method to regularize them. The results on a simulated U-shaped image showed that the proposed method has larger capture range and makes it possible for the contour to progress into concavity more quickly compared with the conventional GVF snake model.

• Journal of the Korean Data and Information Science Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.753-762
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• 2006

The Snakes and GVF used to find object edges dynamically have assigned their initial contour arbitrarily. If the initial contours are located in the neighboring regions of object edges, Snakes and GVF can be close to the true boundary. If not, these will likely to converge to the wrong result. Therefore, this paper proposes a new initialization of Snakes and GVF using convex hull approximation, which initializes the vertex of Snakes and GVF as a convex polygonal contour near object edges. In simulation result, we show that the proposed algorithm has a faster convergence to object edges than the existing methods. Our algorithm also has the advantage of extracting whole edges in real images.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SC
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• v.37 no.5
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• pp.56-62
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• 2000

In this paper, an automatic extraction of the blood flow contour from cardiac MRI is proposed. By using the GVF snake which has wider capture range than the conventional snake, and by automatically generating the initial points along the outside of the contour of the zero GVF field in the edge image of the cardiac MRI, the blood flow contour can be automatically extracted, even when the contours have boundary concavities due to the papillary muscles, without any manual initialization of the experts. Experiments are conducted on the various real cardiac MRIs including noise and papillary muscles, and the proposed method is proved to be efficient in automatic extraction of the blood contours even if they have the boundary concavities.

• Proceedings of the Korean Information Science Society Conference
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• 2002.10d
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• pp.478-480
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• 2002

영상 분할은 임상에서의 진단과 분석 및 3차원 가시화를 위해 선행되어야 할 필수 과정이다. 의료영상은 영상이 가지는 데이터 자체의 고유한 제약들과 해부학적 변이성 때문에 영상분할에 어려움이 있다. 본 논문에서는 의료영상의 분할을 위해 스네이크의 새로운 외부 힘으로 Gradient Vector Flow(GVF)를 이용한 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 2차원 의료영상에서 에지 맵(edge map)을 구하고, GVF을 계산하여 스네이크의 경계선과 같이 관심 있는 특징의 에너지 함수가 최소가 되는 GVF 스네이크(snake)를 구한다. 제안된 방법을 초음파영상과 자기공명영상 같은 의료영상의 분할에 적용한 결과 기존의 스네이크와 달리 잡음이나 오목한 부분이 있는 객체들을 성공적으로 분할하였다.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.13 no.10
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• pp.2163-2170
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• 2009

We present an automated, energy minimized-based method for Lung parenchyma segmenting Chest Computed Tomography(CT) datasets. Deformable model is used for energy minimized segmentation. Quantitative knowledge including expected volume, shape of Chest CT provides more feature constrain to diagnosis or surgery operation planning. Segmentation subdivides an lung image into its consistent regions or objects. Depends on energy-minimizing, the level detail image of subdivision is carried. Segmentation should stop when the objects or region of interest in an application have been detected. The deformable model that has attracted the most attention to date is popularly known as snakes. Snakes or deformable contour models represent a special case of the general multidimensional deformable model theory. This is used extensively in computer vision and image processing applications, particularly to locate object boundaries, in the mean time a new type of external force for deformable models, called gradient vector flow(GVF) was introduced by Xu. Our proposed algorithm of deformable model is new external energy of GVF for exact segmentation. In this paper, Clinical material for experiments shows better results of proposal algorithm in Lung parenchyma segmentation on Chest CT.

• 제어로봇시스템학회:학술대회논문집
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• 2004.08a
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• pp.312-316
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• 2004

The paper presents a technique to identify the boundary of the optic disc in infant retinal digital images using an approach based on active contours (snakes). The technique can be used to be develop a automate system in order to help the ophthalmologist's diagnosis the retinopathy of prematurity (ROP) disease which may occurred on preterm infant,. The optic disc detection is one of the fundamental step which could help to create an automate diagnose system for the doctors we use a new kind of active contour (snake) method has been developed by Chenyang et. al. [1], based on a new type of external force field, called gradient vector flow, or GVF. GVF is computed as a diffusion of the gradient vectors of a gray-level or binary edge map derived from the image. The testing results on a set of infant retinal ROP images verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods. We show that GVF has a large capture range and it's able to move snakes into boundary concavities of optic disc and finally the optic disk boundary was determined.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2005.10b
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• pp.3-5
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• 2005

Vessel boundary detection and modeling is a difficult but a necessary task in analyzing the mechanics of inflammation and the structure of the microvasculature. In this paper we present a method of analyzing the structure by means of an active contour model(using GVF Snake) for vessel boundary detection and 3D reconstruction. For this purpose we used a virtual vessel model and produced a phantom model. From these phantom images we obtained the contours of the vessel by GVF Snake and then reconstructed a 3D structure by using the coordinates of snakes.

• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.713-720
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• 2007

In image-guided surgery, automatic bone segmentation of Computed Tomography (CT) images is an important but challenging step. Previous attempts include intensity-, edge-, region-, and deformable curve-based approaches [1], but none claims fully satisfactory performance. Although active contour (AC) techniques possess many excellent characteristics, their applications in CT image segmentation have not worthily exploited yet. In this study, we have evaluated the automaticity and performance of the model of Chan-Vese Multiphase AC Without Edges towards knee bone segmentation from CT images. This model is suitable because it is initialization-insensitive and topology-adaptive. Its segmentation results have been qualitatively compared with those from four other widely used AC models: namely Gradient Vector Flow (GVF) AC, Geometric AC, Geodesic AC, and GVF Fast Geometric AC. To quantitatively evaluate its performance, the results from a commercial software and a medical expert have been used. The evaluation results show that the Chan-Vese model provides superior performance with least user interaction, proving its suitability for automatic bone segmentation from CT images.