Detecting deformities on objects is a typical topic in shape analysis, and has much applications such as abnormalities detection in medical imaging (e.g. growth of tumor, spread of cancer). While many algorithms are already well-established in a 2-dimensional case when the object is indeed a surface, a model that still performs well in the general n-dimensional case is still missing. It is our goal in this paper to complete this missing piece, by introducing an indicator in order to effectively distinguish between normal and abnormal deformities. The proposed framework is closely related to the classic 2-dimensional conformal geometry and quasi-conformal geometry. In this work, we model abnormal deformations by anisotropic deformations. Given any two objects of the same dimension (with landmark constraints in between), we define the Anisotropic Indicator, a locally defined real-valued function on the original object, which demonstrates the abnormalities in the deformation between them. Both global and local features about the abnormalities between the two objects can be tracked by analyzing the indicator. We tested the algorithm by detecting deformations on synthetic data and real data, and results show that our algorithm can detect deformations of different types and degrees.

Registration, which aims to find an optimal one-to-one correspondence between different data, is an important problem in various fields. This problem is especially challenging when large deformations occur. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm to obtain diffeomorphic image or surface registrations with large deformations via quasi-conformal maps. The basic idea is to minimize an energy functional involving a Beltrami coefficient term, which measures the distortion of the quasi-conformal map. The Beltrami coefficient effectively controls the bijectivity and smoothness of the registration, even with very large deformations. Using the proposed algorithm, landmark-based registration between images or surfaces can be effectively computed. The obtained registration is guaranteed to be diffeomorphic (1-1 and onto), even with a large deformation or large number of landmark constraints. The proposed algorithm can also be combined with matching intensity (such as image intensity or surface curvature) to improve the accuracy of the registration. Experiments have been carried out on both synthetic and real data. Results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm to obtain diffeomorphic registration between images or surfaces.

Finding surface mappings with least distortion arises from many applications in various fields. Extremal Teichmüller maps are surface mappings with least conformality distortion. The existence and uniqueness of the extremal Teichmüller map between Riemann surfaces of finite type are theoretically guaranteed (see Fletcher and Markovic, Quasiconformal maps and Teichmüller theory, Oxford Graduate Texts in Math., vol. 11, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007). Recently, a simple iterative algorithm for computing the Teichmüller maps between connected Riemann surfaces with given boundary value was proposed by Lui, Lam, Yau, and Gu in Teichmüller extremal mapping and its applications to landmark matching registration, arXiv:1211.2569. Numerical results were reported in the paper to show the effectiveness of the algorithm. The method was successfully applied to landmarkmatching registration. The purpose of this paper is to prove the iterative algorithm proposed in loc. cit., indeed converges.

A fresh framework for mesh optimization, the Filtered Hooke's Optimization, is proposed. With the notion of the elasticity theory, the Hooke's Optimization is developed by modifying the Hooke's law, in which an elastic force is simulated on the edges of a mesh so that adjacent vertices are either attracted to each other or repelled from each other, so as to regularize the mesh in terms of triangulation. A normal torque force is acted on vertices to guarantee smoothness of the surface. In addition, a filtering scheme, called the Newtonian Filtering, is proposed as a supplementary tool for the proposed Hooke's Optimization to preserve the geometry of the mesh. Numerical simulations on meshes with different geometry indicate an impressive performance of our proposed framework to significantly improve the mesh triangulation without noteworthy distortions of the mesh geometry.

Finding a meaningful 1–1 correspondence between different data, such as images or surface data, has important applications in various fields. It involves the optimization of certain energy functionals over the space of all diffeomorphisms. This type of optimization problems (called the diffeomorphism optimization problems, DOPs) is especially challenging, since the bijectivity of the mapping has to be ensured. Recently, a method, called the Beltrami holomorphic flow (BHF), has been proposed to solve the DOP using quasi-conformal theories (Lui et al. in J Sci Comput 50(3):557–585, 2012). The optimization problem is formulated over the space of Beltrami coefficients (BCs), instead of the space of all diffeomorphisms. BHF iteratively finds a sequence of BCs associated with a sequence of diffeomorphisms, using the gradient descent method, to minimize the energy functional. The use of BCs effectively controls the smoothness and bijectivity of the mapping, and hence makes it easier to handle the constrained optimization problem. However, the algorithm is computationally expensive. In this paper, we propose an efficient splitting algorithm, based on the classical alternating direction method of multiplier (ADMM), to solve the DOP. The basic idea is to split the energy functional into two energy terms: one involves the BC whereas the other involves the quasi-conformal map. Alternating minimization scheme can then be applied to minimize the energy functional. The proposed method significantly speeds up the previous BHF approach. It also extends the previous BHF algorithm to Riemann surfaces of arbitrary topologies, such as multiply-connected shapes. Experiments have been carried out on synthetic together with real surface data, which demonstrate the efficiency and efficacy of the proposed algorithm to solve the DOP.