J.-P. Thirion¤
INRIA, Equipe Epidaure, 2004 Route des Lucioles BP93, 06902 Sophia-Antipolis, France
Abstract
In this paper, we present the concept of diffusing models to perform image-to-image matching.
Having two images to match, the main idea is to consider the objects boundaries in one image
as semi-permeable membranes and to let the other image, considered as a deformable grid
model, diffuse through these interfaces, by the action of effectors situated within the membranes.
We illustrate this concept by an analogy with Maxwell’s demons. We show that this concept
relates to more traditional ones, based on attraction, with an intermediate step being optical
flow techniques. We use the concept of diffusing models to derive three different non-rigid
matching algorithms, one using all the intensity levels in the static image, one using only contour
points, and a last one operating on already segmented images. Finally, we present results with
synthesized deformations and real medical images, with applications to heart motion tracking
and three-dimensional inter-patients matching.