@article{HanikDuckeHegeetal., author = {Hanik, Martin and Ducke, Benjamin and Hege, Hans-Christian and Fless, Friederike and von Tycowicz, Christoph}, title = {Intrinsic shape analysis in archaeology: A case study on ancient sundials}, series = {Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage}, volume = {16}, journal = {Journal on Computing and Cultural Heritage}, number = {4}, doi = {10.1145/3606698}, pages = {1 -- 26}, abstract = {The fact that the physical shapes of man-made objects are subject to overlapping influences—such as technological, economic, geographic, and stylistic progressions—holds great information potential. On the other hand, it is also a major analytical challenge to uncover these overlapping trends and to disentagle them in an unbiased way. This paper explores a novel mathematical approach to extract archaeological insights from ensembles of similar artifact shapes. We show that by considering all shape information in a find collection, it is possible to identify shape patterns that would be difficult to discern by considering the artifacts individually or by classifying shapes into predefined archaeological types and analyzing the associated distinguishing characteristics. Recently, series of high-resolution digital representations of artifacts have become available. Such data sets enable the application of extremely sensitive and flexible methods of shape analysis. We explore this potential on a set of 3D models of ancient Greek and Roman sundials, with the aim of providing alternatives to the traditional archaeological method of "trend extraction by ordination" (typology). In the proposed approach, each 3D shape is represented as a point in a shape space—a high-dimensional, curved, non-Euclidean space. Proper consideration of its mathematical properties reduces bias in data analysis and thus improves analytical power. By performing regression in shape space, we find that for Roman sundials, the bend of the shadow-receiving surface of the sundials changes with the latitude of the location. This suggests that, apart from the inscribed hour lines, also a sundial's shape was adjusted to the place of installation. As an example of more advanced inference, we use the identified trend to infer the latitude at which a sundial, whose location of installation is unknown, was placed. We also derive a novel method for differentiated morphological trend assertion, building upon and extending the theory of geometric statistics and shape analysis. Specifically, we present a regression-based method for statistical normalization of shapes that serves as a means of disentangling parameter-dependent effects (trends) and unexplained variability. In addition, we show that this approach is robust to noise in the digital reconstructions of the artifact shapes.}, language = {en} } @inproceedings{TuerksevenRekikvonTycowiczetal., author = {T{\"u}rkseven, Doğa and Rekik, Islem and von Tycowicz, Christoph and Hanik, Martin}, title = {Predicting Shape Development: A Riemannian Method}, series = {Shape in Medical Imaging}, booktitle = {Shape in Medical Imaging}, publisher = {Springer Nature}, doi = {10.1007/978-3-031-46914-5_17}, pages = {211 -- 222}, abstract = {Predicting the future development of an anatomical shape from a single baseline observation is a challenging task. But it can be essential for clinical decision-making. Research has shown that it should be tackled in curved shape spaces, as (e.g., disease-related) shape changes frequently expose nonlinear characteristics. We thus propose a novel prediction method that encodes the whole shape in a Riemannian shape space. It then learns a simple prediction technique founded on hierarchical statistical modeling of longitudinal training data. When applied to predict the future development of the shape of the right hippocampus under Alzheimer's disease and to human body motion, it outperforms deep learning-supported variants as well as state-of-the-art.}, language = {en} } @article{NavayazdaniAmbellanHaniketal., author = {Navayazdani, Esfandiar and Ambellan, Felix and Hanik, Martin and von Tycowicz, Christoph}, title = {Sasaki Metric for Spline Models of Manifold-Valued Trajectories}, series = {Computer Aided Geometric Design}, volume = {104}, journal = {Computer Aided Geometric Design}, doi = {10.1016/j.cagd.2023.102220}, pages = {102220}, abstract = {We propose a generic spatiotemporal framework to analyze manifold-valued measurements, which allows for employing an intrinsic and computationally efficient Riemannian hierarchical model. Particularly, utilizing regression, we represent discrete trajectories in a Riemannian manifold by composite B{\´e}zier splines, propose a natural metric induced by the Sasaki metric to compare the trajectories, and estimate average trajectories as group-wise trends. We evaluate our framework in comparison to state-of-the-art methods within qualitative and quantitative experiments on hurricane tracks. Notably, our results demonstrate the superiority of spline-based approaches for an intensity classification of the tracks.}, language = {en} }