TY - GEN A1 - Kramer, Tobias A1 - Noack, Matthias A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Heller, Eric J. T1 - Dust and gas emission from cometary nuclei: the case of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko N2 - Comets display with decreasing solar distance an increased emission of gas and dust particles, leading to the formation of the coma and tail. Spacecraft missions provide insight in the temporal and spatial variations of the dust and gas sources located on the cometary nucleus. For the case of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (67P/C-G), the long-term obser- vations from the Rosetta mission point to a homogeneous dust emission across the entire illuminated surface. Despite the homogeneous initial dis- tribution, a collimation in jet-like structures becomes visible. We propose that this observation is linked directly to the complex shape of the nucleus and projects concave topographical features into the dust coma. To test this hypothesis, we put forward a gas-dust description of 67P/C-G, where gravitational and gas forces are accurately determined from the surface mesh and the rotation of the nucleus is fully incorporated. The emerging jet-like structures persist for a wide range of gas-dust interactions and show a dust velocity dependent bending. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-78 Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-66338 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sagnol, Guillaume A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Weiser, Martin T1 - Using sparse kernels to design computer experiments with tunable precision N2 - Statistical methods to design computer experiments usually rely on a Gaussian process (GP) surrogate model, and typically aim at selecting design points (combinations of algorithmic and model parameters) that minimize the average prediction variance, or maximize the prediction accuracy for the hyperparameters of the GP surrogate. In many applications, experiments have a tunable precision, in the sense that one software parameter controls the tradeoff between accuracy and computing time (e.g., mesh size in FEM simulations or number of Monte-Carlo samples). We formulate the problem of allocating a budget of computing time over a finite set of candidate points for the goals mentioned above. This is a continuous optimization problem, which is moreover convex whenever the tradeoff function accuracy vs. computing time is concave. On the other hand, using non-concave weight functions can help to identify sparse designs. In addition, using sparse kernel approximations drastically reduce the cost per iteration of the multiplicative weights updates that can be used to solve this problem. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-33 KW - Optimal design of computer experiments KW - Sparse kernels KW - Gaussian Process Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-59605 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kasten, Jens A1 - Reininghaus, Jan A1 - Hotz, Ingrid A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Noack, Bernd A1 - Daviller, Guillaume A1 - Morzyński, Marek T1 - Acceleration feature points of unsteady shear flows N2 - A framework is proposed for extracting features in 2D transient flows, based on the acceleration field to ensure Galilean invariance. The minima of the acceleration magnitude, i.e. a superset of the acceleration zeros, are extracted and discriminated into vortices and saddle points --- based on the spectral properties of the velocity Jacobian. The extraction of topological features is performed with purely combinatorial algorithms from discrete computational topology. The feature points are prioritized with persistence, as a physically meaningful importance measure. These features are tracked in time with a robust algorithm for tracking features. Thus a space-time hierarchy of the minima is built and vortex merging events are detected. The acceleration feature extraction strategy is applied to three two-dimensional shear flows: (1) an incompressible periodic cylinder wake, (2) an incompressible planar mixing layer and (3) a weakly compressible planar jet. The vortex-like acceleration feature points are shown to be well aligned with acceleration zeros, maxima of the vorticity magnitude, minima of pressure field and minima of λ2. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-65 Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-58397 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nava-Yazdani, Esfandiar A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - von Tycowicz, Christoph T1 - A Geodesic Mixed Effects Model in Kendall's Shape Space T2 - Proc. 7th MICCAI workshop on Mathematical Foundations of Computational Anatomy (MFCA) N2 - In many applications, geodesic hierarchical models are adequate for the study of temporal observations. We employ such a model derived for manifold-valued data to Kendall's shape space. In particular, instead of the Sasaki metric, we adapt a functional-based metric, which increases the computational efficiency and does not require the implementation of the curvature tensor. We propose the corresponding variational time discretization of geodesics and apply the approach for the estimation of group trends and statistical testing of 3D shapes derived from an open access longitudinal imaging study on osteoarthritis. T3 - ZIB-Report - 19-49 KW - Shape Space KW - Kendall Y1 - 2019 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-74621 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Sakurai, Daisuke A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Kuhn, Alexander A1 - Rust, Henning A1 - Kern, Bastian A1 - Breitkopf, Tom-Lukas T1 - An Application-Oriented Framework for Feature Tracking in Atmospheric Sciences N2 - In atmospheric sciences, sizes of data sets grow continuously due to increasing resolutions. A central task is the comparison of spatiotemporal fields, to assess different simulations and to compare simulations with observations. A significant information reduction is possible by focusing on geometric-topological features of the fields or on derived meteorological objects. Due to the huge size of the data sets, spatial features have to be extracted in time slices and traced over time. Fields with chaotic component, i.e. without 1:1 spatiotemporal correspondences, can be compared by looking upon statistics of feature properties. Feature extraction, however, requires a clear mathematical definition of the features – which many meteorological objects still lack. Traditionally, object extractions are often heuristic, defined only by implemented algorithms, and thus are not comparable. This work surveys our framework designed for efficient development of feature tracking methods and for testing new feature definitions. The framework supports well-established visualization practices and is being used by atmospheric researchers to diagnose and compare data. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-50 Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-72617 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lindow, Norbert A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - Atomic Accessibility Radii for Molecular Dynamics Analysis N2 - In molecular structure analysis and visualization, the molecule’s atoms are often modeled as hard spheres parametrized by their positions and radii. While the atom positions result from experiments or molecular simulations, for the radii typically values are taken from literature. Most often, van der Waals (vdW) radii are used, for which diverse values exist. As a consequence, different visualization and analysis tools use different atomic radii, and the analyses are less objective than often believed. Furthermore, for the geometric accessibility analysis of molecular structures, vdW radii are not well suited. The reason is that during the molecular dynamics simulation, depending on the force field and the kinetic energy in the system, non-bonded atoms can come so close to each other that their vdW spheres intersect. In this paper, we introduce a new kind of atomic radius, called atomic accessibility radius’, that better characterizes the accessibility of an atom in a given molecular trajectory. The new radii reflect the movement possibilities of atoms in the simulated physical system. They are computed by solving a linear program that maximizes the radii of the atoms under the constraint that non-bonded spheres do not intersect in the considered molecular trajectory. Using this data-driven approach, the actual accessibility of atoms can be visualized more precisely. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-18 KW - molecular dynamics KW - atomic radii KW - cavity analysis Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-68468 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lindow, Norbert A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Leborgne, Morgan A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - Interactive Visualization of RNA and DNA Structures N2 - The analysis and visualization of nucleic acids (RNA and DNA) play an increasingly important role due to the growing number of known 3-dimensional structures of such molecules. The great complexity of these structures, in particular, those of RNA, demands interactive visualization to get deeper insights into the relationship between the 2D secondary structure motifs and their 3D tertiary structures. Over the last decades, a lot of research in molecular visualization has focused on the visual exploration of protein structures while nucleic acids have only been marginally addressed. In contrast to proteins, which are composed of amino acids, the ingredients of nucleic acids are nucleotides. They form structuring patterns that differ from those of proteins and, hence, also require different visualization and exploration techniques. In order to support interactive exploration of nucleic acids, the computation of secondary structure motifs as well as their visualization in 2D and 3D must be fast. Therefore, in this paper, we focus on the performance of both the computation and visualization of nucleic acid structure. For the first time, we present a ray casting-based visualization of RNA and DNA secondary and tertiary structures, which enables real-time visualization of even large molecular dynamics trajectories. Furthermore, we provide a detailed description of all important aspects to visualize nucleic acid secondary and tertiary structures. With this, we close an important gap in molecular visualization. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-33 KW - ribonucleic acids KW - DNA KW - RNA KW - secondary & tertiary structures KW - interactive rendering KW - ray casting KW - brushing & linking Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-69704 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Agudo Jácome, Leonardo A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Paetsch, Olaf A1 - Pöthkow, Kai T1 - Three-Dimensional Reconstruction and Quantification of Dislocation Substructures from Transmission Electron Microscopy Stereo-Pairs N2 - A great amount of material properties is strongly influenced by dislocations, the carriers of plastic deformation. It is therefore paramount to have appropriate tools to quantify dislocation substructures with regard to their features, e.g., dislocation density, Burgers vectors or line direction. While the transmission electron microscope (TEM) has been the most widely-used equipment implemented to investigate dislocations, it usually is limited to the two-dimensional (2D) observation of three-dimensional (3D) structures. We reconstruct, visualize and quantify 3D dislocation substructure models from only two TEM images (stereo-pairs) and assess the results. The reconstruction is based on the manual interactive tracing of filiform objects on both images of the stereo-pair. The reconstruction and quantification method are demonstrated on dark field (DF) scanning (S)TEM micrographs of dislocation substructures imaged under diffraction contrast conditions. For this purpose, thick regions (> 300 nm) of TEM foils are analyzed, which are extracted from a Ni-base superalloy single crystal after high temperature creep deformation. It is shown how the method allows 3D quantification from stereo-pairs in a wide range of tilt conditions, achieving line length and orientation uncertainties of 3 % and 7°, respectively. Parameters that affect the quality of such reconstructions are discussed. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-50 KW - dislocation, diffraction contrast, scanning transmission electron microscopy, stereoscopy, visualization Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-70339 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ehlke, Moritz A1 - Ramm, Heiko A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Fast Generation of Virtual X-ray Images from Deformable Tetrahedral Meshes N2 - We propose a novel GPU-based approach to render virtual X-ray projections of deformable tetrahedral meshes. These meshes represent the shape and the internal density distribution of a particular anatomical structure and are derived from statistical shape and intensity models (SSIMs). We apply our method to improve the geometric reconstruction of 3D anatomy (e.g.\ pelvic bone) from 2D X-ray images. For that purpose, shape and density of a tetrahedral mesh are varied and virtual X-ray projections are generated within an optimization process until the similarity between the computed virtual X-ray and the respective anatomy depicted in a given clinical X-ray is maximized. The OpenGL implementation presented in this work deforms and projects tetrahedral meshes of high resolution (200.000+ tetrahedra) at interactive rates. It generates virtual X-rays that accurately depict the density distribution of an anatomy of interest. Compared to existing methods that accumulate X-ray attenuation in deformable meshes, our novel approach significantly boosts the deformation/projection performance. The proposed projection algorithm scales better with respect to mesh resolution and complexity of the density distribution, and the combined deformation and projection on the GPU scales better with respect to the number of deformation parameters. The gain in performance allows for a larger number of cycles in the optimization process. Consequently, it reduces the risk of being stuck in a local optimum. We believe that our approach contributes in orthopedic surgery, where 3D anatomy information needs to be extracted from 2D X-rays to support surgeons in better planning joint replacements. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-38 KW - digitally reconstructed radiographs KW - volume rendering KW - mesh deformation KW - statistical shape and intensity models KW - image registration KW - GPU acceleration Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-41896 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Nava-Yazdani, Esfandiar A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - von Tycowicz, Christoph A1 - Sullivan, T. J. T1 - A Shape Trajectories Approach to Longitudinal Statistical Analysis N2 - For Kendall’s shape space we determine analytically Jacobi fields and parallel transport, and compute geodesic regression. Using the derived expressions, we can fully leverage the geometry via Riemannian optimization and reduce the computational expense by several orders of magnitude. The methodology is demonstrated by performing a longitudinal statistical analysis of epidemiological shape data. As application example we have chosen 3D shapes of knee bones, reconstructed from image data of the Osteoarthritis Initiative. Comparing subject groups with incident and developing osteoarthritis versus normal controls, we find clear differences in the temporal development of femur shapes. This paves the way for early prediction of incident knee osteoarthritis, using geometry data only. T3 - ZIB-Report - 18-42 KW - shape space, shape trajectories, geodesic regression, longitudinal analysis, osteoarthritis Y1 - 2018 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-69759 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Günther, Tobias A1 - Kuhn, Alexander A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Theisel, Holger T1 - MCFTLE: Monte Carlo Rendering of Finite-Time Lyapunov Exponent Fields N2 - Traditionally, Lagrangian fields such as finite-time Lyapunov exponents (FTLE) are precomputed on a discrete grid and are ray casted afterwards. This, however, introduces both grid discretization errors and sampling errors during ray marching. In this work, we apply a progressive, view-dependent Monte Carlo-based approach for the visualization of such Lagrangian fields in time-dependent flows. Our ap- proach avoids grid discretization and ray marching errors completely, is consistent, and has a low memory consumption. The system provides noisy previews that con- verge over time to an accurate high-quality visualization. Compared to traditional approaches, the proposed system avoids explicitly predefined fieldline seeding structures, and uses a Monte Carlo sampling strategy named Woodcock tracking to distribute samples along the view ray. An acceleration of this sampling strategy requires local upper bounds for the FTLE values, which we progressively acquire during the rendering. Our approach is tailored for high-quality visualizations of complex FTLE fields and is guaranteed to faithfully represent detailed ridge surface structures as indicators for Lagrangian coherent structures (LCS). We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by using a set of analytic test cases and real-world numerical simulations. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-21 KW - Picture/Image Generation, Display algorithms, Three-Dimensional Graphics and Realism, Raytracing Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-59054 SN - 1438-0064 N1 - By mistake the fourth author Hans-Christian Hege has been ommitted in the journal publication ER - TY - GEN A1 - Kuhn, Alexander A1 - Engelke, Wito A1 - Flatken, Markus A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Hotz, Ingrid T1 - Topology-based Analysis for Multimodal Atmospheric Data of Volcano Eruptions N2 - Many scientific applications deal with data from a multitude of different sources, e.g., measurements, imaging and simulations. Each source provides an additional perspective on the phenomenon of interest, but also comes with specific limitations, e.g. regarding accuracy, spatial and temporal availability. Effectively combining and analyzing such multimodal and partially incomplete data of limited accuracy in an integrated way is challenging. In this work, we outline an approach for an integrated analysis and visualization of the atmospheric impact of volcano eruptions. The data sets comprise observation and imaging data from satellites as well as results from numerical particle simulations. To analyze the clouds from the volcano eruption in the spatiotemporal domain we apply topological methods. Extremal structures reveal structures in the data that support clustering and comparison. We further discuss the robustness of those methods with respect to different properties of the data and different parameter setups. Finally we outline open challenges for the effective integrated visualization using topological methods. T3 - ZIB-Report - 16-03 KW - multi-modal, intergrated data analysis, topology Y1 - 2016 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-57043 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Wiebel, Alexander A1 - Vos, Frans M. A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - Perception-Oriented Picking of Structures in Direct Volumetric Renderings N2 - Radiologists from all application areas are trained to read slice-based visualizations of 3D medical image data. Despite the numerous examples of sophisticated three-dimensional renderings, especially all variants of direct volume rendering, such methods are often considered not very useful by radiologists who prefer slice-based visualization. Just recently there have been attempts to bridge this gap between 2D and 3D renderings. These attempts include specialized techniques for volume picking that result in repositioning slices. In this paper, we present a new volume picking technique that, in contrast to previous work, does not require pre-segmented data or metadata. The positions picked by our method are solely based on the data itself, the transfer function and, most importantly, on the way the volumetric rendering is perceived by viewers. To demonstrate the usefulness of the proposed method we apply it for automatically repositioning slices in an abdominal MRI scan, a data set from a flow simulation and a number of other volumetric scalar fields. Furthermore we discuss how the method can be implemented in combination with various different volumetric rendering techniques. T3 - ZIB-Report - 11-45 KW - DVR KW - picking KW - pointing KW - direct volume rendering Y1 - 2011 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-14343 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Lindow, Norbert A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Lepper, Verena A1 - Siopi, Tzulia A1 - Kutz, Frank A1 - Mahlow, Kristin A1 - Mahnke, Heinz-Eberhard T1 - Revealing hidden text in rolled and folded papyri N2 - Ancient Egyptian papyri are often folded, rolled up or kept as small packages, sometimes even sealed. Physically unrolling or unfolding these packages might severely damage them. We demonstrate a way to get access to the hidden script without physical unfolding by employing computed tomography and mathematical algorithms for virtual unrolling and unfolding. Our algorithmic approaches are combined with manual interaction. This provides the necessary flexibility to enable the unfolding of even complicated and partly damaged papyrus packages. In addition, it allows us to cope with challenges posed by the structure of ancient papyrus, which is rather irregular, compared to other writing substrates like metallic foils or parchment. Unfolding of packages is done in two stages. In the first stage, we virtually invert the physical folding process step by step until the partially unfolded package is topologically equivalent to a scroll or a papyrus sheet folded only along one fold line. To minimize distortions at this stage, we apply the method of moving least squares. In the second stage, the papyrus is simply flattened, which requires the definition of a medial surface. We have applied our software framework to several papyri. In this work, we present the results of applying our approaches to mockup papyri that were either rolled or folded along perpendicular fold lines. In the case of the folded papyrus, our approach represents the first attempt to address the unfolding of such complicated folds. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-02 KW - unfolding, papyri, computed tomography Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-61826 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Papazov, Chavdar A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - Blue-noise Optimized Point Sets Based on Procrustes Analysis N2 - In this paper, we propose a new method for optimizing the blue noise characteristics of point sets. It is based on Procrustes analysis, a technique for adjusting shapes to each other by applying optimal elements of an appropriate transformation group. We adapt this technique to the problem at hand and introduce a very simple, efficient and provably convergent point set optimizer. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-55 KW - blue-noise KW - point set optimization KW - triangulation KW - Procrustes analysis Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-65356 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Klindt, Marco A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Prohaska, Steffen A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - iCon.text – a customizable iPad app for kiosk applications in museum exhibitions N2 - We present iCon.text, a kiosk platform for the iPad centered around artefacts, whose content and layout can be tailored without programming skills for specific museum exhibitions. The central metaphor to access information is a virtual postcard with one front and a customizable number of back sides that provide details about exhibits to museum visitors in textual and image form. Back sides can link to others cards. Access to these postcards is possible through one or more navigation views that can be navigated to from a navigation bar. The entry point to the application is designed as a multitouch interactive pile of cards in a playful manner that allows visitors of any age an easy approach to the presentation and interaction metaphor. To directly access a certain postcard, a mosaic view can be uitilized to provide an overview about all available exhibits. A category view groups postcards into themes. Locating artefacts on a zoomable map or exhibition floor plan allows for conveying information about spatial contexts between different objects and their location. Furthermore, contexts can be illustrated with a two stage view comprising an overview and corresponding detail views to provide further insights into the spatial, temporal, and thematic contexts of artefacts. The application scaffolding allows the design of bilingual presentations to support exhibitions with an international audience. The logo of the presenting institution or exhibition can be incorporated to display the the kiosk's corporate design branding and to access an imprint or further informations. Usage is logged into files to provide a basis for extracting statistical information about the usage. The details about the exhibits are presented as images and as such impose no limit to the design choices made by the content provider or exhibition designer. The application (enhanced with a panoramic view) has been integrated successfully into a large special exhibition about the ancient city of Pergamon 2011/2012 at the Pergamon Museum Berlin within the interdisciplinary project "Berlin Sculpture Network". T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-07 KW - HCI KW - Cultural Heritage KW - Kiosk application KW - iPad Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-17731 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Egger, Robert A1 - Dercksen, Vincent J. A1 - Udvary, Daniel A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Oberlaender, Marcel T1 - Generation of dense statistical connectomes from sparse morphological data N2 - Sensory-evoked signal flow, at cellular and network levels, is primarily determined by the synaptic wiring of the underlying neuronal circuitry. Measurements of synaptic innervation, connection probabilities and sub-cellular organization of synaptic inputs are thus among the most active fields of research in contemporary neuroscience. Methods to measure these quantities range from electrophysiological recordings over reconstructions of dendrite-axon overlap at light-microscopic levels to dense circuit reconstructions of small volumes at electron-microscopic resolution. However, quantitative and complete measurements at subcellular resolution and mesoscopic scales to obtain all local and long-range synaptic in/outputs for any neuron within an entire brain region are beyond present methodological limits. Here, we present a novel concept, implemented within an interactive software environment called NeuroNet, which allows (i) integration of sparsely sampled (sub)cellular morphological data into an accurate anatomical reference frame of the brain region(s) of interest, (ii) up-scaling to generate an average dense model of the neuronal circuitry within the respective brain region(s) and (iii) statistical measurements of synaptic innervation between all neurons within the model. We illustrate our approach by generating a dense average model of the entire rat vibrissal cortex, providing the required anatomical data, and illustrate how to measure synaptic innervation statistically. Comparing our results with data from paired recordings in vitro and in vivo, as well as with reconstructions of synaptic contact sites at light- and electron-microscopic levels, we find that our in silico measurements are in line with previous results. T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-43 KW - 3D neural network KW - Dense connectome KW - Reconstruction Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-53075 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Dercksen, Vincent J. A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Oberlaender, Marcel T1 - The Filament Editor: An Interactive Software Environment for Visualization, Proof-Editing and Analysis of 3D Neuron Morphology N2 - Neuroanatomical analysis, such as classification of cell types, depends on reliable reconstruction of large numbers of complete 3D dendrite and axon morphologies. At present, the majority of neuron reconstructions are obtained from preparations in a single tissue slice in vitro, thus suffering from cut off dendrites and, more dramatically, cut off axons. In general, axons can innervate volumes of several cubic millimeters and may reach path lengths of tens of centimeters. Thus, their complete reconstruction requires in vivo labeling, histological sectioning and imaging of large fields of view. Unfortunately, anisotropic background conditions across such large tissue volumes, as well as faintly labeled thin neurites, result in incomplete or erroneous automated tracings and even lead experts to make annotation errors during manual reconstructions. Consequently, tracing reliability renders the major bottleneck for reconstructing complete 3D neuron morphologies. Here, we present a novel set of tools, integrated into a software environment named ‘Filament Editor’, for creating reliable neuron tracings from sparsely labeled in vivo datasets. The Filament Editor allows for simultaneous visualization of complex neuronal tracings and image data in a 3D viewer, proof-editing of neuronal tracings, alignment and interconnection across sections, and morphometric analysis in relation to 3D anatomical reference structures. We illustrate the functionality of the Filament Editor on the example of in vivo labeled axons and demonstrate that for the exemplary dataset the final tracing results after proof-editing are independent of the expertise of the human operator. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-75 Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-43157 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Stoppel, Sergej A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian A1 - Wiebel, Alexander T1 - Visibility-Driven Depth Determination of Surface Patches in Direct Volume Rendering N2 - This paper presents an algorithm called surfseek for selecting surfaces on the most visible features in direct volume rendering (DVR). The algorithm is based on a previously published technique (WYSIWYP) for picking 3D locations in DVR. The new algorithm projects a surface patch on the DVR image, consisting of multiple rays. For each ray the algorithm uses WYSIWYP or a variant of it to find the candidates for the most visible locations along the ray. Using these candidates the algorithm constructs a graph and computes a minimum cut on this graph. The minimum cut represents a very visible but relatively smooth surface. In the last step the selected surface is displayed. We provide examples for the results in real-world dataset as well as in artificially generated datasets. T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-11 KW - Interaction Techniques KW - Volume Rendering KW - Picking KW - Surfaces Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-50266 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Wiebel, Alexander A1 - Preis, Philipp A1 - Vos, Frans M. A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - Computation and Application of 3D Strokes on Visible Structures in Direct Volume Rendering N2 - In this paper we describe VisiTrace, a novel technique to draw 3D lines in 3D volume rendered images. It allows to draw strokes in the 2D space of the screen to produce 3D lines that run on top or in the center of structures actually visible in the volume rendering. It can handle structures that only shortly occlude the structure that has been visible at the starting point of the stroke and is able to ignore such structures. For this purpose a shortest path algorithm finding the optimal curve in a specially designed graph data structure is employed. We demonstrate the usefulness of the technique by applying it to MRI data from medicine and engineering, and show how the method can be used to mark or analyze structures in the example data sets, and to automatically obtain good views toward the selected structures. T3 - ZIB-Report - 13-20 KW - DVR KW - interaction Y1 - 2013 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-18070 SN - 1438-0064 ER -