Section: Overall Objectives

Overall objectives

Since 1970s, medical imaging is a very rapidly growing research domain; the last three decades have shown a rapid evolution of the dimension and quantity of data physicians have to work with. The next decade will follow this evolution by adding not only new spatio-temporal dimensions to the image data produced and used in a clinical environment but also new scales of analysis (nano or micro biological and molecular images to macro medical images). Another evolution will also consist in adding new effectors during image-guided interventional procedures (surgery, interventional radiology...). The classical way of making use of these images, mostly based on human interpretation, becomes less and less feasible. In addition, the societal pressure for a cost effective use of the equipments on the one hand, and a better traceability and quality insurance of the decision making process on the other hand, makes the development of advanced computer-assisted medical imaging systems more and more essential. According to this context, our research team is devoted to the development of new processing algorithms in the context of medical image computing and computer-assisted interventions: image fusion (registration and visualization), image segmentation and analysis, management of image-related information ... In this very large domain, our work is primarily focused on clinical applications and for the most part on head and brain related diseases.

Research activities of the VisAGeS team are concerned with the development of new processing algorithms in the field of medical image computing and computer assisted interventions: image fusion (registration and visualization), image segmentation and analysis, management of image related information ... Since this is a very large domain, for seek of efficiency, the application of our work will be primarily focused on clinical aspects and for the most part on head and neck related diseases. Our research efforts mainly concern:

• In the field of image fusion and image registration (rigid and deformable transformations) with a special emphasis on new challenging registration issues, especially when statistical approaches based on joint histogram cannot be used or when the registration stage has to cope with loss or appearance of material (like in surgery or in tumor imaging for instance).

• In the field of image analysis and statistical modeling with a new focus on image feature and group analysis problems. A special attention was also to the develop advanced frameworks for the construction of atlases and for automatic and supervised labeling of brain structures.

• In the field of image segmentation and structure recognition, with a special emphasis on the difficult problems of i) image restoration for new imaging sequences (new Magnetic Resonance Imaging protocols, 3D ultrasound sequences ...), and ii) structure segmentation and labeling based on shape, multimodal and statistical information.

• The field of information management in neuroimaging we aim at enhancing the development of distributed and heterogeneous medical image processing systems

Concerning the application domains, we emphasize our research efforts on the neuroimaging domain with two up-front priorities: Image Guided Neurosurgery and Image Analysis in Multiple Sclerosis, while developing new ones especially in the interventional aspects (per-operative imagery, robotics...).