Medical imaging is an important and rapidly expanding area in medical science. Many of the methods employed are essentially digital, for example computerized tomography, and the subject has become increasingly influenced by develop ments in both mathematics and computer science. The mathematical problems have been the concern of a relatively small group of scientists, consisting mainly of applied mathematicians and theoretical physicists. Their efforts have led to workable algorithms for most imaging modalities. However, neither the fundamentals, nor the limitations and disadvantages of these algorithms are known to a sufficient degree to the physicists, engineers and physicians trying to implement these methods. It seems both timely and important to try to bridge this gap. This book summarizes the proceedings of a NATO Advanced Study Institute, on these topics, that was held in the mountains of Tuscany for two weeks in the late summer of 1986. At another (quite different) earlier meeting on medical imaging, the authors noted that each of the speakers had given, there, a long introduction in their general area, stated that they did not have time to discuss the details of the new work, but proceeded to show lots of clinical results, while excluding any mathematics associated with the area.

Medical imaging is a very important area in diagnostic (and increasingly therapeutic) medicine. Many new techniques are being developed or extended which depend on digital methods. Although conventional x-radiographs still comprise the bulk of the medical images acquired in a hospital, digital methods such as computerized tomography and magnetic resonance imaging are now often claimed to have a more significant clinical impact. This book is concerned with three aspects of such digital images: their formation, or how they can be acquired; their handling, or how they may be manipulated to increase their clinical value; and their evaluation, or how their impact and value may be assessed. The book is divided into three parts. Part 1 comprises a series of reviews in the general subject area written by authorities in the field. Part 2 includes papers on theoretical aspects: 3D images, reconstruction, perception, and image processing. Part 3includes papers on applications in nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance, andradiology.

This edited volume addresses a subject which has been discussed inten sively in the computer vision community for several years. Performance characterization and evaluation of computer vision algorithms are of key importance, particularly with respect to the configuration of reliable and ro bust computer vision systems as well as the dissemination of reconfigurable systems in novel application domains. Although a plethora of literature on this subject is available for certain' areas of computer vision, the re search community still faces a lack of a well-grounded, generally accepted, and--eventually-standardized methods. The range of fundamental problems encoIl passes the value of synthetic images in experimental computer vision, the selection of a representative set of real images related to specific domains and tasks, the definition of ground truth given different tasks and applications, the design of experimental test beds, the analysis of algorithms with respect to general characteristics such as complexity, resource consumption, convergence, stability, or range of admissible input data, the definition and analysis of performance measures for classes of algorithms, the role of statistics-based performance measures, the generation of data sheets with performance measures of algorithms sup porting the system engineer in his configuration problem, and the validity of model assumptions for specific applications of computer vision."

This edited volume addresses a subject which has been discussed inten sively in the computer vision community for several years. Performance characterization and evaluation of computer vision algorithms are of key importance, particularly with respect to the configuration of reliable and ro bust computer vision systems as well as the dissemination of reconfigurable systems in novel application domains. Although a plethora of literature on this subject is available for certain' areas of computer vision, the re search community still faces a lack of a well-grounded, generally accepted, and--eventually-standardized methods. The range of fundamental problems encoIl passes the value of synthetic images in experimental computer vision, the selection of a representative set of real images related to specific domains and tasks, the definition of ground truth given different tasks and applications, the design of experimental test beds, the analysis of algorithms with respect to general characteristics such as complexity, resource consumption, convergence, stability, or range of admissible input data, the definition and analysis of performance measures for classes of algorithms, the role of statistics-based performance measures, the generation of data sheets with performance measures of algorithms sup porting the system engineer in his configuration problem, and the validity of model assumptions for specific applications of computer vision."