Viewing Transformations of Voxel-Based Objects Via Linear Octrees

This article gives three viewing-transformation algorithms for displaying on a screen 3D pictures represented by linear octrees. All the procedures take advantage of the recursive labeling used to identify the successive decomposition of an object into octants. The first algorithm performs transformations directly on the linear octree, while the second and third algorithms determine the 3D border of the given object first and then project onto the screen the surface voxels thus found. All the algorithms perform the viewing transformations in O(RN) time, where R is the resolution of the picture and N is the number of elements in the linear octree. One of the algorithms provides views of the object at different layers of gray level, while another allows internal views.     

The theory,design, implementation and evaluation of a three-dimensional surface detection algorithm

In many three-dimensional imaging applications the three-dimensional scene is represented by a three-dimensional array of volume elements, or voxels for short. A subset Q of the voxels is specified by some property. The objects in the scene are then defined as subsets of Q formed by voxels which are “connected” in some appropriate sense. It is often of interest to detect and display the surface of an object in the scene, specified, say, by one of the voxels in it. In this paper, the problem of surface detection is translated into a problem of traversal of a directed graph, G. The nodes of G correspond to faces separating voxels in Q from voxels not in Q. It is proven that connected subgraphs of G correspond to surfaces of connected components of Q (i.e., of objects in the scene). Further properties of the directed graph are established which allow us to keep the number of marked nodes (needed to avoid loops in the graph traversal) to a small fraction of the total number of visited nodes. This boundary detection algorithm has been implemented. We discuss the interaction between the underlying mathematical theory and the design of the working software. We illustrate the software by some clinical studies in which the input is computed tomographic (CT) data and the output is dynamically rotating three-dimensional displays of isolated organs. Even though the medical application leads to very large-scale problems, our theory and design allows us to use our method routinely on the minicomputer of a CT scanner.     

Linear octrees by volume intersection

The paper describes a new algorithm for constructing a 3D approximation of an object from three orthogonal 2D silhouettes. The 2D views are represented as binary arrays and 3D approximation is obtained as a linear octree. The algorithm makes use of volume intersection of three cylinders obtained by sweeping three views in respective directions. The algorithm takes less time than an existing algorithm which makes use of three quadtrees and an octree for 2D and 3D image representation, respectively. Unlike the previous algorithm, the present algorithm does not require any preprocessing stage or condensation. It is Shown that the proposed algorithm is of o(T), where T is the total number of nodes in the resulting octree.     

Topology preservation of template-based 6-subiteration reduction operations

Generally, a reduction operation (e.g., thinning and shrinking) on 3D binary images can be represented as a set of reduction templates where every object voxel of the image satisfying any template is turned to a background voxel. Generally, it is rather difficult, error-prone and time-consuming for verifying the topological soundness of a 3D parallel reduction operation. This paper proposes sufficient conditions of time complexity O(n) for verifying the topological soundness of 3D parallel 6-subiteration reduction operations of n templates where such a kind of 3D reduction operations is performed alternatively from the six orthogonal directions to turn object voxels to background voxels. By such sufficient conditions, the topology soundness of a 3D 6-subiteration parallel reduction operation can be verified by checking each and every of its templates.     

结合体元数据结构的机载LIDAR建筑物检测

目的 目前,点云、栅格格网及不规则三角网等建筑物检测中常用的离散机载激光雷达（LIDAR）点云数据表达方式存在模型表达复杂、算法开发困难、结果表达不准确及难以表达多返回数据等缺点。为此,针对LIDAR点云体元结构模型构建及在此基础上的建筑物检测展开研究,提出一种基于体元的建筑物检测算法。方法 首先将点云数据规则化为二值（即1、0值,分别表示体元中是否包含有激光点）3D体元结构。然后利用3D滤波算法将上述体元结构中表征数据点的体元分类为地面和非地面体元。最后,依据建筑物边缘的接近直线、跳变特性从非地面体元中搜寻建筑物边缘作为种子体元进而标记与其3D连通的非地面体元集合为建筑物体元。结果 实验基于ISPRS（international society for photogrammetry and remote sensing）提供的包含了不同的建筑物类型的城区LIDAR点云数据测试了"邻域尺度"参数的敏感性及提出算法的精度。定量评价的结果表明：56邻域为最佳邻域尺度;建筑物的检测质量可达到95%以上——平均完整度可达到95.61%、平均正确率可达95.97%。定性评价的结果表明：对大型、密集、不规则形状、高低混合及其他屋顶类型比较特殊的复杂建筑物均可成功检测。结论 本文提出的建筑物检测算法采用基于体元空间邻域关系的搜索标记方式,可有效实现对各类建筑目标特别是城市建筑目标的检测,检测结果易于建模3D建筑物模型。     

Matching and spanning in certain planar graphs

Call a connected planar graphG legal if it has at least two nodes, no parallel edges or self-loops and at most two terminals (degree 1 nodes) and all terminals and degree 2 nodes are exterior. This class of graphs arose in connection with a two-dimensional generating system for modeling growth by binary cell division. Showing that any permitted pattern can be generated properly requires a matching or pairing lemma. The vertex set of a legal graph withn nodes can be split intop adjacent pairs ands singletons withs p, resulting in a matching which includes at least \(2\left[ {\frac{n}{3}} \right]\) nodes. This bound is sharp in the sense that there are legal graphs for which this matching is maximum. The matching can be implemented by a linear time algorithm. A legal graph witht terminals and n≥4 nodes has a spanning tree with at most \(\left[ {\frac{{n - t}}{2}} \right] + t\) terminals; this bound is sharp. Such a spanning tree can be constructed by an algorithm which operates in almost linear time.     

Fast connected-component labelling in three-dimensional binary images based on iterative recursion

We propose two new methods to label connected components based on iterative recursion: one directly labels an original binary image while the other labels the boundary voxels followed by one-pass labelling of non-boundary object voxels. The novelty of the proposed methods is a fast labelling of large datasets without stack overflow and a flexible trade-off between speed and memory. For each iterative recursion: (1) the original volume is scanned in the raster order and an initially unlabelled object voxel v is selected, (2) a sub-volume with a user-defined size is formed around the selected voxel v, (3) within this sub-volume all object voxels 26-connected to v are labelled using iterations; and (4) subsequent iterative recursions are initiated from those border object voxels of the sub-volume that are 26-connected to v. Our experiments show that the time-memory trade-off is that the decrease in the execution time by one-third requires the increase in memory size by 3 orders. This trade-off is controlled by the user by changing the size of the sub-volume. Experiments on large three-dimensional brain phantom datasets (362 × 432 × 362 voxels of 56 MB (megabytes)) show that the proposed methods are three times faster on the average (with the maximum speedup of 10) than the existing iterative methods based on label equivalences with less than 1 MB memory consumption. Moreover, our algorithms are applicable to any dimensional data and are less dependant on the geometric complexity of connected components.     

A General Multi-step Algorithm for Voxel Traversing Along a Line

Traversing voxels along a three dimensional (3D) line is one of the most fundamental algorithms for voxel‐based applications. This paper presents a new 6‐connectivity integer algorithm for this task. The proposed algorithm accepts voxels having different sizes in x, y and z directions. To explain the idea of the proposed approach, a 2D algorithm is firstly considered and then extended in 3D. This algorithm is a multi‐step as up to three voxels may be added in one iteration. It accepts both integer and floating‐point input. The new algorithm was compared to other popular voxel traversing algorithms. Counting the number of arithmetic operations showed that the proposed algorithm requires the least amount of operations per traversed voxel. A comparison of spent CPU time using either integer or floating‐point arithmetic confirms that the proposed algorithm is the most efficient. This algorithm is simple, and in compact form which also makes it attractive for hardware implementation.     

Internal and external algorithms for the points-in-regions problem—the inside join of geo-relational algebra

We consider the problem of collectively locating a set of points within a set of disjoint polygonal regions when neither for points nor for regions preprocessing is allowed. This problem arises in geometric database systems. More specifically it is equivalent to computing theinside join of geo-relational algebra, a conceptual model for geo-data management. We describe efficient algorithms for solving this problem based on plane-sweep and divide-and-conquer, requiringO(n(logn) +t) andO(n(log² n) +t) time, respectively, andO(n) space, wheren is the total number of points and edges, and (is the number of reported (point, region) pairs. Since the algorithms are meant to be practically useful we consider as well as the internal versions-running completely in main memory-versions that run internally but use much less than linear space and versions that run externally, that is, require only a constant amount of internal memory regardless of the amount of data to be processed. Comparing plane-sweep and divide-and-conquer, it turns out that divide-and-conquer can be expected to perform much better in the external case even though it has a higher internal asymptotic worst-case complexity. An interesting theoretical by-product is a new general technique for handling arbitrarily large sets of objects clustered on a singlex-coordinate within a planar divide-and-conquer algorithm and a proof that the resulting “unbalanced” dividing does not lead to a more than logarithmic height of the tree of recursive calls.     

3D object recognition method with multiple feature extraction from LiDAR point clouds

During autonomous driving, fast and accurate object recognition supports environment perception for local path planning of unmanned ground vehicles. Feature extraction and object recognition from large-scale 3D point clouds incur massive computational and time costs. To implement fast environment perception, this paper proposes a 3D recognition system with multiple feature extraction from light detection and ranging point clouds modified by parallel computing. Effective object feature extraction is a necessary step prior to executing an object recognition procedure. In the proposed system, multiple geometry features of a point cloud that resides in corresponding voxels are computed concurrently. In addition, a scale filter is employed to convert feature vectors from uncertain count voxels to a normalized object feature matrix, which is convenient for object-recognizing classifiers. After generating the object feature matrices of all voxels, an initialized multilayer neural network (NN) model is trained offline through a large number of iterations. Using the trained NN model, real-time object recognition is realized using parallel computing technology to accelerate computation.

     

Acknowledged broadcasting in ad hoc radio networks

We consider ad hoc radio networks in which each node knows only its own identity but is unaware of the topology of the network, or of any bound on its size or diameter. Acknowledged broadcasting (AB) is a communication task consisting in transmitting a message from a distinguished source to all other nodes of the network and making this fact common knowledge among all nodes. To do this, the underlying directed graph must be strongly connected. Working in a model allowing all nodes to transmit spontaneously even before getting the source message, Chlebus et al. [B. Chlebus, L. Ga?sieniec, A. Gibbons, A. Pelc, W. Rytter, Deterministic broadcasting in unknown radio networks, Distrib. Comput. 15 (2002) 27-38] proved that AB is impossible, if collision detection is not available, and gave an AB algorithm using collision detection that works in time O(nD) where n is the number of nodes and D is the eccentricity of the source. Uchida et al. [J. Uchida, W. Chen, K. Wada, Acknowledged broadcasting and gossiping in ad hoc radio networks, Theoret. Comput. Sci. 377 (2007) 43-54] showed an AB algorithm without collision detection working in time O(n4/3log10/3n) for all strongly connected networks of size at least 2. In particular, it follows that the impossibility result from [B. Chlebus, L. Ga?sieniec, A. Gibbons, A. Pelc, W. Rytter, Deterministic broadcasting in unknown radio networks, Distrib. Comput. 15 (2002) 27-38] is really caused by the singleton network for which AB amounts to realize that the source is alone. We improve those two results by presenting two generic AB algorithms using a broadcasting algorithm without acknowledgement, as a procedure. For a large class of broadcasting algorithms the resulting AB algorithm has the same time complexity. Using the currently best known broadcasting algorithms, we obtain an AB algorithm with collision detection working in time O(min{nlog²D,nlognloglogn}), for arbitrary strongly connected networks, and an AB algorithm without collision detection working in time O(nlognloglogn) for all strongly connected networks of size n?2. Moreover, we show that in the model in which only nodes that already got the source message can transmit, AB is infeasible in a strong sense: for any AB algorithm there exists an infinite family of networks for which this algorithm is incorrect.     

Parallel display of objects represented by linear octrees

The storage, display, and manipulation of three dimensional volumetric information requires large amounts of computing resources, both in terms of memory, and processing power. Most existing serial algorithms that display 3-D objects on a 2-D screen are found to be too slow to process the large amounts of volume data in a reasonable time. Hence, one way to increase the performance of the display algorithm is to process individual volume elements (voxels) in parallel. The first part of this paper presents a brief over view of the linear octree data structure which represents 3-D objects by an eight-way branching tree, while the second part focusses on the parallel display of such objects. We have shown that, for an object represented by a linear octree and enclosed in a 2ⁿ×2ⁿ×2ⁿ universe, the maximum number of voxels that can be processed in parallel is 3ⁿ, and the maximum number of time steps required to display such an object is 4ⁿ. This paper presents a set of formulae which identify the processing element (PE) as well as the time step in which a given linear octree node is processed. Similarly, a procedure which determines the locational code of a linear octree node which must be processed by a given PE, at some specific time step, is presented, along with a strategy for determining whether a PE is active or idle     

Automatic Image Segmentation by Tree Pruning

The Image Foresting Transform (IFT) is a tool for the design of image processing operators based on connectivity, which reduces image processing problems into an optimum-path forest problem in a graph derived from the image. A new image operator is presented, which solves segmentation by pruning trees of the forest. An IFT is applied to create an optimum-path forest whose roots are seed pixels, selected inside a desired object. In this forest, object and background are connected by optimum paths (leaking paths), which cross the object’s boundary through its “most weakly connected” parts (leaking pixels). These leaking pixels are automatically identified and their subtrees are eliminated, such that the remaining forest defines the object. Tree pruning runs in linear time, is extensible to multidimensional images, is free of ad hoc parameters, and requires only internal seeds, with little interference from the heterogeneity of the background. These aspects favor solutions for automatic segmentation. We present a formal definition of the obtained objects, algorithms, sufficient conditions for tree pruning, and two applications involving automatic segmentation: 3D MR-image segmentation of the human brain and image segmentation of license plates. Given that its most competitive approach is the watershed transform by markers, we also include a comparative analysis between them.     

基于近似最小距离场的二维图像骨架提取方法

提出了基于近似最小距离场提取二值图像的8-连通骨架的算法。该算法对图像中的每个像素根据其与边界的相对距离进行整数编码,形成近似最小距离场,将该距离场中的几何邻接的、具有局部最大值的像素形成聚类,对聚类进行细化,用最短路径将不同的细化后的聚类连接起来。该算法简单,将其在实验数据集上进行实验,结果证明算法具有很高的效率。     

基于体素模型的3D打印支撑算法

3D 打印技术是通过对材料的逐层堆积来构建物体,但对模型悬空的区域需要添加 支撑结构。支撑结构不仅会造成打印材料的浪费,而且会延长打印时间并对模型外表有所损伤。 为此,提出一种基于体素模型的支撑算法,针对体素化后的模型,分析体素之间的相互支撑作用, 并引入体素支撑能量函数概念和计算方法,计算出需要添加支撑的体素,从而得到需要添加支撑 结构的区域,并由该区域生成支撑结构,之后通过实验对算法进行验证。实验结果显示该算法能 够更加准确地对模型生成支撑,同时,基于体素模型的支撑算法对于模型内部支撑计算,也具有 很好的适用性。     

A parallel algorithm for generating chain code of objects in binary images

This paper addresses parallel execution of chain code generation on a linear array architecture. The contours in the proposed algorithm are viewed as a set of edges (or contour segments) that can be traced by a top-down contour tracing method to generate the chain codes for the outer and inner object contours. A parallel algorithm that contains the chain code generating rules and operations needed is also described, and the algorithm is mapped onto a one-dimensional systolic array containing processing elements (PEs) to devise this architecture. The architecture extracts the contours of objects and quickly generates the corresponding chain codes after the image data in all rows are inputted in a linear fashion. The total processing time for generating the chain codes in an N×N image is O(3N). By doing so, the real-time requirement is fulfilled and its execution time is independent of the image content. In addition, a partition method is developed to process an image when the parallel architecture has a fixed number of PEs; say two or more. The total execution time for an N×N image by employing a fixed number of PEs is N(N+1)/M+2(M−1), when M is the fixed number of PEs.     

Hyperconnected attribute filters based on k-flat zones

In this paper, we present a new method for attribute filtering, combining contrast and structural information. Using hyperconnectivity based on k-flat zones, we improve the ability of attribute filters to retain internal details in detected objects. Simultaneously, we improve the suppression of small, unwanted detail in the background. We extend the theory of attribute filters to hyperconnectivity and provide a fast algorithm to implement the new method. The new version is only marginally slower than the standard Max-Tree algorithm for connected attribute filters, and linear in the number of pixels or voxels. It is two orders of magnitude faster than anisotropic diffusion. The method is implemented in the form of a filtering rule suitable for handling both increasing (size) and nonincreasing (shape) attributes. We test this new framework on nonincreasing shape filters on both 2D images from astronomy, document processing, and microscopy, and 3D CT scans, and show increased robustness to noise while maintaining the advantages of previous methods.     

A fast 3D seed-filling algorithm

The 3D seed-filling algorithm that fills consecutive object voxels at a time has shown higher efficiency than the method of filling only one voxel at a time. However, it searches seeds for filled voxels already containing no seeds. This paper presents a fast 3D seed-filling algorithm that uses a 2D pointer array of linked lists to avoid the redundant seed searches. The linked lists record the spans of filled voxels. Five comparison cases determine the current filling span, and the neighboring spans for searching seeds are either non-overlapping, or completely or partially overlapping. Seed searches are executed only for the non-overlapping span or part (in the case of the partial overlapping span) to minimize the searches. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is effective in eliminating the redundant seed searches and achieves high efficiency.     

On marching cubes

A characterization and classification of the isosurfaces of trilinear functions is presented. Based upon these results, a new algorithm for computing a triangular mesh approximation to isosurfaces for data given on a 3D rectilinear grid is presented. The original marching cubes algorithm is based upon linear interpolation along edges of the voxels. The asymptotic decider method is based upon bilinear interpolation on faces of the voxels. The algorithm of this paper carries this theme forward to using trilinear interpolation on the interior of voxels. The algorithm described here will produce a triangular mesh surface approximation to an isosurface which preserves the same connectivity/separation of vertices as given by the isosurface of trilinear interpolation.