TY - GEN A1 - Wilson, David A1 - Bücher, Pia A1 - Grewe, Carl Martin A1 - Mocanu, Valentin A1 - Anglin, Carolyn A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Dunbar, Michael T1 - Validation of Three Dimensional Models of the Distal Femur Created from Surgical Navigation Data T2 - Orthopedic Research Society Annual Meeting Y1 - 2015 CY - Las Vegas, Nevada ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lube, Juliane A1 - Flack, Natasha A1 - Cotofana, Sebastian A1 - Özkurtul, Orkun A1 - Woodley, Stephanie A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Hammer, Niels T1 - Pelvic and lower extremity physiological cross-sectional areas: An MRI study of the living young and comparison to published research literature JF - Surgical and Radiologic Anatomy N2 - Purpose: Morphological data pertaining to the pelvis and lower extremity muscles are increasingly being used in biomechanical modeling to compare healthy and pathological conditions. Very few data sets exist that encompass all of the muscles of the lower limb, allowing for comparisons between regions. The aims of this study were to (a) provide physiological cross-sectional area (PCSA) data for the pelvic, thigh, and leg muscles in young, healthy participants, using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), and (b) to compare these data with summarized PCSAs obtained from the literature. Materials and Methods: Six young and healthy volunteers participated and were scanned using 3 T MRI. PCSAs were calculated from volumetric segmentations obtained bilaterally of 28 muscles/muscle groups of the pelvis, thigh, and leg. These data were compared to published, summarized PCSA data derived from cadaveric, computed tomography, MRI and ultrasound studies. Results: The PCSA of the pelvis, thigh, and leg muscles tended to be 20–130% larger in males than in females, except for the gemelli which were 34% smaller in males, and semitendinosus and triceps surae which did not differ (<20% different). The dominant and the non-dominant sides showed similar and minutely different PCSA with less than 18% difference between sides. Comparison to other studies revealed wide ranges within, and large differences between, the cadaveric and imaging PCSA data. Comparison of the PCSA of this study and published literature revealed major differences in the iliopsoas, gluteus minimus, tensor fasciae latae, gemelli, obturator internus, biceps femoris, quadriceps femoris, and the deep leg flexor muscles. Conclusions: These volume-derived PCSAs of the pelvic and lower limb muscles alongside the data synthesised from the literature may serve as a basis for comparative and biomechanical studies of the living and healthy young, and enable calculation of muscle forces. Comparison of the literature revealed large variations in PCSA from each of the different investigative modalities, hampering omparability between studies. Sample size, age, post-mortem changes of muscle tone, chemical fixation of cadaveric tissues, and the underlying physics of the imaging techniques may potentially influence PCSA calculations. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00276-016-1807-6 VL - 39 IS - 8 SP - 849 EP - 857 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Mukhopadhyay, Anirban A1 - Morillo, Oscar A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Lamecker, Hans T1 - Robust and Accurate Appearance Models Based on Joint Dictionary Learning Data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative T2 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Patch-Based Techniques in Medical Imaging. Patch-MI 2016 N2 - Deformable model-based approaches to 3D image segmentation have been shown to be highly successful. Such methodology requires an appearance model that drives the deformation of a geometric model to the image data. Appearance models are usually either created heuristically or through supervised learning. Heuristic methods have been shown to work effectively in many applications but are hard to transfer from one application (imaging modality/anatomical structure) to another. On the contrary, supervised learning approaches can learn patterns from a collection of annotated training data. In this work, we show that the supervised joint dictionary learning technique is capable of overcoming the traditional drawbacks of the heuristic approaches. Our evaluation based on two different applications (liver/CT and knee/MR) reveals that our approach generates appearance models, which can be used effectively and efficiently in a deformable model-based segmentation framework. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-47118-1_4 VL - 9993 SP - 25 EP - 33 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sahu, Manish A1 - Mukhopadhyay, Anirban A1 - Szengel, Angelika A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Addressing multi-label imbalance problem of Surgical Tool Detection using CNN JF - International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery N2 - Purpose: A fully automated surgical tool detection framework is proposed for endoscopic video streams. State-of-the-art surgical tool detection methods rely on supervised one-vs-all or multi-class classification techniques, completely ignoring the co-occurrence relationship of the tools and the associated class imbalance. Methods: In this paper, we formulate tool detection as a multi-label classification task where tool co-occurrences are treated as separate classes. In addition, imbalance on tool co-occurrences is analyzed and stratification techniques are employed to address the imbalance during Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) training. Moreover, temporal smoothing is introduced as an online post-processing step to enhance run time prediction. Results: Quantitative analysis is performed on the M2CAI16 tool detection dataset to highlight the importance of stratification, temporal smoothing and the overall framework for tool detection. Conclusion: The analysis on tool imbalance, backed by the empirical results indicates the need and superiority of the proposed framework over state-of-the-art techniques. Y1 - 2017 UR - https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11548-017-1565-x U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-017-1565-x N1 - Selected for final oral presentation VL - 12 IS - 6 SP - 1013 EP - 1020 PB - Springer ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wilson, David A1 - Anglin, Carolyn A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Grewe, Carl Martin A1 - Tack, Alexander A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Dunbar, Michael A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Validation of three-dimensional models of the distal femur created from surgical navigation point cloud data for intraoperative and postoperative analysis of total knee arthroplasty JF - International Journal of Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery N2 - Purpose: Despite the success of total knee arthroplasty there continues to be a significant proportion of patients who are dissatisfied. One explanation may be a shape mismatch between pre and post-operative distal femurs. The purpose of this study was to investigate a method to match a statistical shape model (SSM) to intra-operatively acquired point cloud data from a surgical navigation system, and to validate it against the pre-operative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data from the same patients. Methods: A total of 10 patients who underwent navigated total knee arthroplasty also had an MRI scan less than 2 months pre-operatively. The standard surgical protocol was followed which included partial digitization of the distal femur. Two different methods were employed to fit the SSM to the digitized point cloud data, based on (1) Iterative Closest Points (ICP) and (2) Gaussian Mixture Models (GMM). The available MRI data were manually segmented and the reconstructed three-dimensional surfaces used as ground truth against which the statistical shape model fit was compared. Results: For both approaches, the difference between the statistical shape model-generated femur and the surface generated from MRI segmentation averaged less than 1.7 mm, with maximum errors occurring in less clinically important areas. Conclusion: The results demonstrated good correspondence with the distal femoral morphology even in cases of sparse data sets. Application of this technique will allow for measurement of mismatch between pre and post-operative femurs retrospectively on any case done using the surgical navigation system and could be integrated into the surgical navigation unit to provide real-time feedback. Y1 - 2017 UR - https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs11548-017-1630-5.pdf U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s11548-017-1630-5 VL - 12 IS - 12 SP - 2097 EP - 2105 PB - Springer ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hoffmann, René A1 - Lemanis, Robert A1 - Falkenberg, Janina A1 - Schneider, Steffen A1 - Wesendonk, Hendrik A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Integrating 2D and 3D shell morphology to disentangle the palaeobiology of ammonoids: A virtual approach JF - Palaeontology N2 - We demonstrate, based on data derived from computed tomography, that integrating 2D and 3D morphological data of ammonoid shells represent an important new approach to disentangle the palaeobiology of ammonoids. Characterization of ammonite morphology has long been constrained to 2D data and only a few studies collect ontogenetic data in 180° steps. We combine this traditional approach with 3D data collected from high-resolution nano-computed tomography. For this approach, ontogenetic morphological data of the hollow shell of a juvenile ammonite Kosmoceras (Jurassic, Callovian) is collected. 2D data is collected in 10° steps and show significant changes in shell morphology. Preserved hollow spines show multiple mineralized membranes never reported before, representing temporal changes of the ammonoid mantle tissue. 3D data show that chamber volumes do not always increase exponentially, as was generally assumed, but may represent a proxy for life events, e.g. stress phases. Furthermore, chamber volume cannot be simply derived from septal spacing in forms comparable to Kosmoceras. Vogel numbers, a 3D parameter for chamber shape, of Kosmoceras are similar to other ammonoids (Arnsbergites, Amauroceras) and modern cephalopods (Nautilus, Spirula). Two methods to virtually document the suture line ontogeny, used to document phylogenetic relationships of larger taxonomic entities, were applied for the first time and seem a promising alternative to hand drawings. The curvature of the chamber surfaces increases during ontogeny due to increasing strength of ornamentation and septal complexity. As increasing curvature may allow for faster handling of cameral liquid, it could compensate for decreasing SA/V ratios through ontogeny. Y1 - 2017 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/pala.12328 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1111/pala.12328 VL - 61 IS - 1 SP - 89 EP - 104 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Baum, Daniel A1 - Mahlow, Kristin A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Müller, Johannes A1 - Hege, Hans-Christian T1 - The Potential of Surface-based Geometric Morphometrics for Evolutionary Studies: An Example using Dwarf Snakes (Eirenis) T2 - Abstract in DigitalSpecimen 2014 N2 - Geometric morphometrics plays an important role in evolutionary studies. The state-of-the-art in this field are landmark-based methods. Since the landmarks usually need to be placed manually, only a limited number of landmarks are generally used to represent the shape of an anatomical structure. As a result, shape characteristics that cannot be properly represented by small sets of landmarks are disregarded. In this study, we present a method that is free of this limitation. The method takes into account the whole shape of an anatomical structure, which is represented as a surface, hence the term ‘surface-based morphometrics’. Correspondence between two surfaces is established by defining a partitioning of the surfaces into homologous surface patches. The first step for the generation of a surface partitioning is to place landmarks on the surface. Subsequently, the landmarks are connected by curves lying on the surface. The curves, called ‘surface paths’, might either follow specific anatomical features or they can be geodesics, that is, shortest paths on the surface. One important requirement, however, is that the resulting surface path networks are topologically equivalent across all surfaces. Once the surface path networks have been defined, the surfaces are decomposed into patches according to the path networks. This approach has several advantages. One of them is that we can discretize the surface by as many points as desired. Thus, even fine shape details can be resolved if this is of interest for the study. Since a point discretization is used, another advantage is that well-established analysis methods for landmark-based morphometrics can be utilized. Finally, the shapes can be easily morphed into one another, thereby greatly supporting the understanding of shape changes across all considered specimens. To show the potential of the described method for evolutionary studies of biological specimens, we applied the method to the para-basisphenoid complex of the snake genus Eirenis. By using this anatomical structure as example, we present all the steps that are necessary for surface-based morphometrics, including the segmentation of the para-basisphenoid complex from micro-CT data sets. We also show some first results using statistical analysis as well as classification methods based on the presented technique. Y1 - 2014 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Brüning, Jan A1 - Goubergrits, Leonid A1 - Heppt, Werner A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Hildebrandt, Thomas T1 - Numerical Analysis of Nasal Breathing - A Pilot Study JF - Facial Plastic Surgery N2 - Background: Currently, there is no fully sufficient way to differentiate between symptomatic and normal nasal breathing. Using the nose’s total resistance is disputed as a valid means to objectify nasal airflow, and the need for a more comprehensive diagnostic method is increasing. This work’s aim was to test a novel approach considering intranasal wall shear stress as well as static pressure maps obtained by computational fluid dynamics (CFD). Methods: X-ray computed tomography (CT) scan data of six symptom-free subjects and seven symptomatic patients were used. Patient-specific geometries of the nasal cavity were segmented from these data sets. Inspiratory and expiratory steady airflow simulations were performed using CFD. Calculated static pressures and wall shear stresses (WSS) were mapped onto a common template of the nasal septum, allowing for comparison of these parameters between the two patient groups. Results: Significant differences in wall shear stress distributions during the inspiratory phase could be identified between the two groups, whereas no differences were found for the expiratory phase. It is assumed that one essential feature of normal nasal breathing probably consists in distinctively different intranasal flow fields for inspiration and expiration. This is in accordance with previous investigations. Conclusion: The proposed method seems to be a promising tool for developing a new kind of patient-specific assessment of nasal breathing. However, more studies and a greater case number of data with an expanded focus, would be ideal. Y1 - 2017 U6 - https://doi.org/doi:10.1055/s-0037-1603789 VL - 33 IS - 4 SP - 388 EP - 395 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Weiser, Martin A1 - Erdmann, Bodo A1 - Schenkl, Sebastian A1 - Muggenthaler, Holger A1 - Hubig, Michael A1 - Mall, Gita A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Uncertainty in Temperature-Based Determination of Time of Death N2 - Temperature-based estimation of time of death (ToD) can be per- formed either with the help of simple phenomenological models of corpse cooling or with detailed mechanistic (thermodynamic) heat transfer mod- els. The latter are much more complex, but allow a higher accuracy of ToD estimation as in principle all relevant cooling mechanisms can be taken into account. The potentially higher accuracy depends on the accuracy of tissue and environmental parameters as well as on the geometric resolution. We in- vestigate the impact of parameter variations and geometry representation on the estimated ToD based on a highly detailed 3D corpse model, that has been segmented and geometrically reconstructed from a computed to- mography (CT) data set, differentiating various organs and tissue types. From that we identify the most crucial parameters to measure or estimate, and obtain a local uncertainty quantifcation for the ToD. T3 - ZIB-Report - 17-18 KW - forensic medicine KW - determination of time of death KW - heat transfer equation KW - sensitivity i.r.t. thermal parameters KW - sensitivity i.r.t. geometric resolution Y1 - 2017 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-63818 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - von Tycowicz, Christoph A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Mukhopadhyay, Anirban A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - An Efficient Riemannian Statistical Shape Model using Differential Coordinates JF - Medical Image Analysis N2 - We propose a novel Riemannian framework for statistical analysis of shapes that is able to account for the nonlinearity in shape variation. By adopting a physical perspective, we introduce a differential representation that puts the local geometric variability into focus. We model these differential coordinates as elements of a Lie group thereby endowing our shape space with a non-Euclidean structure. A key advantage of our framework is that statistics in a manifold shape space becomes numerically tractable improving performance by several orders of magnitude over state-of-the-art. We show that our Riemannian model is well suited for the identification of intra-population variability as well as inter-population differences. In particular, we demonstrate the superiority of the proposed model in experiments on specificity and generalization ability. We further derive a statistical shape descriptor that outperforms the standard Euclidean approach in terms of shape-based classification of morphological disorders. Y1 - 2018 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2017.09.004 VL - 43 IS - 1 SP - 1 EP - 9 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Hoffmann, René A1 - Schultz, Julia A. A1 - Schellhorn, Rico A1 - Rybacki, Erik A1 - Keupp, Helmut A1 - Lemanis, Robert A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Non-invasive imaging methods applied to neo- and paleo-ontological cephalopod research N2 - Several non-invasive methods are common practice in natural sciences today. Here we present how they can be applied and contribute to current topics in cephalopod (paleo-) biology. Different methods will be compared in terms of time necessary to acquire the data, amount of data, accuracy/resolution, minimum/maximum size of objects that can be studied, the degree of post-processing needed and availability. The main application of the methods is seen in morphometry and volumetry of cephalopod shells. In particular we present a method for precise buoyancy calculation. Therefore, cephalopod shells were scanned together with different reference bodies, an approach developed in medical sciences. It is necessary to know the volume of the reference bodies, which should have similar absorption properties like the object of interest. Exact volumes can be obtained from surface scanning. Depending on the dimensions of the study object different computed tomography techniques were applied. T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-18 Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-50300 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Ehlke, Moritz A1 - Frenzel, Thomas A1 - Ramm, Heiko A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Akbari Shandiz, Mohsen A1 - Anglin, Carolyn A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Robust Measurement of Natural Acetabular Orientation from AP Radiographs using Articulated 3D Shape and Intensity Models T3 - ZIB-Report - 14-12 KW - articulated shape and intensity models KW - 3D reconstruction KW - acetabular orientation KW - image registration Y1 - 2014 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-49824 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Computational Planning in Facial Surgery JF - Facial Plastic Surgery N2 - This article reflects the research of the last two decades in computational planning for cranio-maxillofacial surgery. Model-guided and computer-assisted surgery planning has tremendously developed due to ever increasing computational capabilities. Simulators for education, planning, and training of surgery are often compared with flight simulators, where maneuvers are also trained to reduce a possible risk of failure. Meanwhile, digital patient models can be derived from medical image data with astonishing accuracy and thus can serve for model surgery to derive a surgical template model that represents the envisaged result. Computerized surgical planning approaches, however, are often still explorative, meaning that a surgeon tries to find a therapeutic concept based on his or her expertise using computational tools that are mimicking real procedures. Future perspectives of an improved computerized planning may be that surgical objectives will be generated algorithmically by employing mathematical modeling, simulation, and optimization techniques. Planning systems thus act as intelligent decision support systems. However, surgeons can still use the existing tools to vary the proposed approach, but they mainly focus on how to transfer objectives into reality. Such a development may result in a paradigm shift for future surgery planning. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0035-1564717 VL - 31 IS - 5 SP - 446 EP - 462 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Lamas-Rodríguez, Julián A1 - Ehlke, Moritz A1 - Hoffmann, René A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - GPU-accelerated denoising of large tomographic data sets with low SNR BT - Application for non-invasive analysis of paleontological data N2 - Enhancements in tomographic imaging techniques facilitate non-destructive methods for visualizing fossil structures. However, to penetrate dense materials such as sediments or pyrites, image acquisition is typically performed with high beam energy and very sensitive image intensifiers, leading to artifacts and noise in the acquired data. The analysis of delicate fossil structures requires the images to be captured in maximum resolution, resulting in large data sets of several giga bytes (GB) in size. Since the structural information of interest is often almost in the same spatial range as artifacts and noise, image processing and segmentation algorithms have to cope with a very low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Within this report we present a study on the performance of a collection of denoising algorithms applied to a very noisy fossil dataset. The study shows that a non-local means (NLM) filter, in case it is properly configured, is able to remove a considerable amount of noise while preserving most of the structural information of interest. Based on the results of this study, we developed a software tool within ZIBAmira that denoises large tomographic datasets using an adaptive, GPU-accelerated NLM filter. With the help of our implementation a user can interactively configure the filter's parameters and thus its effectiveness with respect to the data of interest, while the filtering response is instantly visualized for a preselected region of interest (ROI). Our implementation efficiently denoises even large fossil datasets in a reasonable amount of time. T3 - ZIB-Report - 15-14 Y1 - 2015 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-56339 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grewe, Carl Martin A1 - Schreiber, Lisa A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Fast and Accurate Digital Morphometry of Facial Expressions JF - Facial Plastic Surgery Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0035-1564720 VL - 31 IS - 05 SP - 431 EP - 438 PB - Thieme Medical Publishers CY - New York ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Statistical Shape Modeling of Musculoskeletal Structures and Its Applications T2 - Computational Radiology for Orthopaedic Interventions N2 - Statistical shape models (SSM) describe the shape variability contained in a given population. They are able to describe large populations of complex shapes with few degrees of freedom. This makes them a useful tool for a variety of tasks that arise in computer-aided madicine. In this chapter we are going to explain the basic methodology of SSMs and present a variety of examples, where SSMs have been successfully applied. Y1 - 2016 SN - 978-3-319-23481-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23482-3 VL - 23 SP - 1 EP - 23 PB - Springer ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Heppt, Werner T1 - The Facial Profile JF - Facial Plastic Surgery N2 - Facial appearance in our societies is often associated with notions of attractiveness, juvenileness, beauty, success, and so forth. Hence, the role of facial plastic surgery is highly interrelated to a patient's desire to feature many of these positively connoted attributes, which of course, are subject of different cultural perceptions or social trends. To judge about somebody's facial appearance, appropriate quantitative measures as well as methods to obtain and compare individual facial features are required. This special issue on facial profile is intended to provide an overview on how facial characteristics are surgically managed in an interdisciplinary way based on experience, instrumentation, and modern technology to obtain an aesthetic facial appearance with harmonious facial proportions. The facial profile will be discussed within the context of facial aesthetics. Latest concepts for capturing facial morphology in high speed and impressive detail are presented for quantitative analysis of even subtle changes, aging effects, or facial expressions. In addition, the perception of facial profiles is evaluated based on eye tracking technology. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1055/s-0035-1566132 VL - 31 IS - 5 SP - 419 EP - 420 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zahn, Robert A1 - Grotjohann, Sarah A1 - Ramm, Heiko A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Putzier, Michael A1 - Perka, Carsten A1 - Tohtz, Stephan T1 - Pelvic tilt compensates for increased acetabular anteversion JF - International Orthopaedics N2 - Pelvic tilt determines functional orientation of the acetabulum. In this study, we investigated the interaction of pelvic tilt and functional acetabular anteversion (AA) in supine position. Y1 - 2015 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/s00264-015-2949-6 VL - 40 IS - 8 SP - 1571 EP - 1575 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Zahn, Robert A1 - Grotjohann, Sarah A1 - Ramm, Heiko A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Pumberger, Matthias A1 - Putzier, Michael A1 - Perka, Carsten A1 - Tohtz, Stephan T1 - Influence of pelvic tilt on functional acetabular orientation JF - Technology and Health Care Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3233/THC-161281 VL - 25 IS - 3 SP - 557 EP - 565 PB - IOS Press ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Lemanis, Robert A1 - Korn, Dieter A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Rybacki, Erik A1 - Hoffmann, René T1 - The Evolution and Development of Cephalopod Chambers and Their Shape JF - PLOS ONE N2 - The Ammonoidea is a group of extinct cephalopods ideal to study evolution through deep time. The evolution of the planispiral shell and complexly folded septa in ammonoids has been thought to have increased the functional surface area of the chambers permitting enhanced metabolic functions such as: chamber emptying, rate of mineralization and increased growth rates throughout ontogeny. Using nano-computed tomography and synchrotron radiation based micro-computed tomography, we present the first study of ontogenetic changes in surface area to volume ratios in the phragmocone chambers of several phylogenetically distant ammonoids and extant cephalopods. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, ammonoids do not possess a persistently high relative chamber surface area. Instead, the functional surface area of the chambers is higher in earliest ontogeny when compared to Spirula spirula. The higher the functional surface area the quicker the potential emptying rate of the chamber; quicker chamber emptying rates would theoretically permit faster growth. This is supported by the persistently higher siphuncular surface area to chamber volume ratio we collected for the ammonite Amauroceras sp. compared to either S. spirula or nautilids. We demonstrate that the curvature of the surface of the chamber increases with greater septal complexity increasing the potential refilling rates. We further show a unique relationship between ammonoid chamber shape and size that does not exist in S. spirula or nautilids. This view of chamber function also has implications for the evolution of the internal shell of coleoids, relating this event to the decoupling of soft-body growth and shell growth. Y1 - 2016 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0151404 VL - 11 IS - 3 ER -