TY - CHAP A1 - Sengupta, Agniva A1 - Kuş, Dilara A1 - Li, Jianning A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Globally Optimal Pose from Orthographic Silhouettes N2 - We solve the problem of determining the pose of known shapes in R^3 from their unoccluded silhouettes. The pose is determined up to global optimality using a simple yet under-explored property of the area-of-silhouette: its continuity w.r.t trajectories in the rotation space. The proposed method utilises pre-computed silhouette-signatures, modelled as a response surface of the area-of-silhouettes. Querying this silhouette-signature response surface for pose estimation leads to a strong branching of the rotation search space, making resolution-guided candidate search feasible. Additionally, we utilise the aspect ratio of 2D ellipses fitted to projected silhouettes as an auxiliary global shape signature to accelerate the pose search. This combined strategy forms the first method to efficiently estimate globally optimal pose from just the silhouettes, without being guided by correspondences, for any shape, irrespective of its convexity and genus. We validate our method on synthetic and real examples, demonstrating significantly improved accuracy against comparable approaches. Y1 - 2026 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Trepczynski, Adam A1 - Kneifel, Paul A1 - Heyland, Mark A1 - Leskovar, Marko A1 - Moewis, Philippe A1 - Damm, Philipp A1 - Taylor, William R. A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Duda, Georg N. T1 - Impact of the external knee flexion moment on patello-femoral loading derived from in vivo loads and kinematics JF - Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology N2 - Introduction: Anterior knee pain and other patello-femoral (PF) complications frequently limit the success of total knee arthroplasty as the final treatment of end stage osteoarthritis. However, knowledge about the in-vivo loading conditions at the PF joint remains limited, as no direct measurements are available. We hypothesised that the external knee flexion moment (EFM) is highly predictive of the PF contact forces during activities with substantial flexion of the loaded knee. Materials and methods: Six patients (65–80 years, 67–101 kg) with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) performed two activities of daily living: sit-stand-sit and squat. Tibio-femoral (TF) contact forces were measured in vivo using instrumented tibial components, while synchronously internal TF and PF kinematics were captured with mobile fluoroscopy. The measurements were used to compute PF contact forces using patient specific musculoskeletal models. The relationship between the EFM and the PF contact force was quantified using linear regression. Results: Mean peak TF contact forces of 1.97–3.24 times body weight (BW) were found while peak PF forces reached 1.75 to 3.29 times body weight (BW). The peak EFM ranged from 3.2 to 5.9 %BW times body height, and was a good predictor of the PF contact force (R2 = 0.95 and 0.88 for sit-stand-sit and squat, respectively). Discussion: The novel combination of in vivo TF contact forces and internal patellar kinematics enabled a reliable assessment of PF contact forces. The results of the regression analysis suggest that PF forces can be estimated based solely on the EFM from quantitative gait analysis. Our study also demonstrates the relevance of PF contact forces, which reach magnitudes similar to TF forces during activities of daily living. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1473951 SN - 2296-4185 VL - 12/2024 PB - Frontiers Media SA ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Manogue, Kevin A1 - Schang, Tomasz A1 - Kuş, Dilara A1 - Müller, Jonas A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Sengupta, Agniva T1 - Generalizing Shape-from-Template to Topological Changes T2 - Smart Tools and Applications in Graphics - Eurographics Italian Chapter Conference N2 - Reconstructing the surfaces of deformable objects from correspondences between a 3D template and a 2D image is well studied under Shape-from-Template (SfT) methods; however, existing approaches break down when topological changes accompany the deformation. We propose a principled extension of SfT that enables reconstruction in the presence of such changes. Our approach is initialized with a classical SfT solution and iteratively adapts the template by partitioning its spatial domain so as to minimize an energy functional that jointly encodes physical plausibility and reprojection consistency. We demonstrate that the method robustly captures a wide range of practically relevant topological events including tears and cuts on bounded 2D surfaces, thereby establishing the first general framework for topological-change-aware SfT. Experiments on both synthetic and real data confirm that our approach consistently outperforms baseline methods. Y1 - 2025 SN - 978-3-03868-296-7 U6 - https://doi.org/10.2312/stag.20251322 PB - The Eurographics Association ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Li, Jianning A1 - Bitter, Kerstin A1 - Nguyen, Anh Duc A1 - Shemesh, Hagay A1 - Zaslansky, Paul A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Computational Insights into Root Canal Treatment: A Survey of Selected Methods in Imaging, Segmentation, Morphological Analysis, and Clinical Management JF - dentistry journal N2 - Background/Objectives: Root canal treatment (RCT) is a common dental procedure performed to preserve teeth by removing infected or at-risk pulp tissue caused by caries, trauma, or other pulpal conditions. A successful outcome, among others, depends on accurate identification of the root canal anatomy, planning a suitable therapeutic strategy, and ensuring a bacteria-tight root canal filling. Despite advances in dental techniques, there remains limited integration of computational methods to support key stages of treatment. This review aims to provide a comprehensive overview of computational methods applied throughout the full workflow of RCT, examining their potential to support clinical decision-making, improve treatment planning and outcome assessment, and help bridge the interdisciplinary gap between dentistry and computational research. Methods: A comprehensive literature review was conducted to identify and analyze computational methods applied to different stages of RCT, including root canal segmentation, morphological analysis, treatment planning, quality evaluation, follow-up, and prognosis prediction. In addition, a taxonomy based on application was developed to categorize these methods based on their function within the treatment process. Insights from the authors’ own research experience were also incorporated to highlight implementation challenges and practical considerations. Results: The review identified a wide range of computational methods aimed at enhancing the consistency and efficiency of RCT. Key findings include the use of advanced image processing for segmentation, image analysis for diagnosis and treatment planning, machine learning for morphological classification, and predictive modeling for outcome estimation. While some methods demonstrate high sensitivity and specificity in diagnostic and planning tasks, many remain in experimental stages and lack clinical integration. There is also a noticeable absence of advanced computational techniques for micro-computed tomography and morphological analysis. Conclusions: Computational methods offer significant potential to improve decision-making and outcomes in RCT. However, greater focus on clinical translation and development of cross-modality methodology is needed. The proposed taxonomy provides a structured framework for organizing existing methods and identifying future research directions tailored to specific phases of treatment. This review serves as a resource for both dental professionals, computer scientists and researchers seeking to bridge the gap between clinical practice and computational innovation. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.3390/dj13120579 VL - 13 IS - 12 PB - MDPI ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Leskovar, Marko A1 - Heyland, Mark A1 - Trepczynski, Adam A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Comparison of Global and Local Optimization Methods for Intensity-based 2D-3D Registration JF - Computers in Biology and Medicine Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compbiomed.2024.109574 VL - 186 SP - 109574 PB - Elsevier ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Kosch, Thomas A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk T1 - MorphoHaptics: An Open-Source Tool for Visuohaptic Exploration of Morphological Image Datasets T2 - KUI '24: Proceedings of the 21th International Conference on Culture and Computer Science: from Humanism to Digital Humanities N2 - Although digital methods have significantly advanced morphology, practitioners are still challenged to understand and process tomographic data of specimens. As automated processing of fossil data is still insufficient, morphologists still engage in intensive manual work to digitally prepare fossils for research objectives. We present an open-source tool that enables morphologists to explore tomographic data similarly to the physical workflows that traditional fossil preparators experience in the field. Using questionnaires, we assessed the usability of our prototype for virtual fossil preparation and related common tasks in the digital preparation workflow. Our findings indicate that integrating haptics into the virtual preparation workflow enhances the understanding of the morphology and material properties of working specimens and that the visuohaptic sculpting of fossil volumes is straightforward and is an improvement over current digital specimen processing methods. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3719236.3719271 SP - 1 EP - 10 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sengupta, Agniva A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Shape-from-Template with Generalised Camera JF - Image and Vision Computing N2 - This article presents a new method for non-rigidly registering a 3D shape to 2D keypoints observed by a constellation of multiple cameras. Non-rigid registration of a 3D shape to observed 2D keypoints, i.e., Shape-from-Template (SfT), has been widely studied using single images, but SfT with information from multiple-cameras jointly opens new directions for extending the scope of known use-cases such as 3D shape registration in medical imaging and registration from hand-held cameras, to name a few. We represent such multi-camera setup with the generalised camera model; therefore any collection of perspective or orthographic cameras observing any deforming object can be registered. We propose multiple approaches for such SfT: the first approach where the corresponded keypoints lie on a direction vector from a known 3D point in space, the second approach where the corresponded keypoints lie on a direction vector from an unknown 3D point in space but with known orientation w.r.t some local reference frame, and a third approach where, apart from correspondences, the silhouette of the imaged object is also known. Together, these form the first set of solutions to the SfT problem with generalised cameras. The key idea behind SfT with generalised camera is the improved reconstruction accuracy from estimating deformed shape while utilising the additional information from the mutual constraints between multiple views of a deformed object. The correspondence-based approaches are solved with convex programming while the silhouette-based approach is an iterative refinement of the results from the convex solutions. We demonstrate the accuracy of our proposed methods on many synthetic and real data. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.imavis.2025.105579 VL - 162 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Deppe, Dominik A1 - Gabriele, Matteo A1 - Mazzoleni, Manuel Giovanni A1 - Ordas-Bayon, Alejandro A1 - Fidanza, Andrea A1 - Rozhko, Yuriy A1 - Şimşek, Ekin Kaya A1 - Keltz, Eran A1 - Osterhoff, Georg A1 - Damm, Philipp A1 - Duda, Georg N. A1 - Leskovar, Marko A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Trepczynski, Adam A1 - Heyland, Mark T1 - Interobserver Reliability of the Modified Radiographic Union Score (mRUST) for Tibial and Femoral Fractures JF - Journal of Orthopaedic Trauma N2 - OBJECTIVES: To evaluate the reliability of the modified Radiographic Union Score for Tibial fractures (mRUST) as a reliable tool for monitoring lower limb fractures (femur, tibia) treated with various modalities (nail, plate). METHODS: Design: Retrospective analysis. Setting: Single center academic hospital in Germany. Patient Selection Criteria: Adult patients (≥18 years) with extra-articular long bone fractures of the lower extremities treated surgically between January 2005 and April 2022, requiring radiographs in two perpendicular planes and at least one follow-up visit, were included. Exclusion criteria were critical clinical conditions, inability to consent, joint articulation fractures, inadequate documentation, or insufficient imaging quality. Outcome Measures and Comparisons: Six international investigators (five orthopedic surgeons, one radiologist) independently assessed fracture line and callus growth per cortex (mRUST) at individualized follow-up time points based on clinical practice. To evaluate interrater reliability, intraclass correlation coefficients were calculated for the overall dataset, and for subsets of rated images, that were defined based on anatomical location (femur/tibia), treatment type (plate/nail fixation), and treatment combinations across locations. RESULTS: A total of 166 patients (63 femur fractures, 103 tibia fractures; 32.5% female, mean age 43.4 (18–84)) with 1136 follow-up time points were analyzed. Overall interrater reliability for mRUST was good (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.77), consistent across fixation methods (nail/plate fixation, 0.79) and anatomical locations (tibia, 0.78; femur, 0.81). Cortex-specific reliability varied, with highest agreement for the medial cortex (0.70–0.74) and lowest for the posterior cortex (0.65–0.74). CONCLUSIONS: The mRUST (radiographic score) demonstrated reliability for monitoring fracture healing in the femur and tibia, irrespective of fixation method, supporting its use as a generalizable tool across lower limb fractures. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE: Prognostic Level III. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence. Y1 - 2025 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1097/BOT.0000000000003032 SN - 0890-5339 VL - 39 IS - 10 SP - 557 EP - 563 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Xie, Kunpeng A1 - Gruber, Lennart Johannes A1 - Crampen, Martin A1 - Li, Yao A1 - Ferreira, André A1 - Tappeiner, Elias A1 - Gillot, Maxime A1 - Schepers, Jan A1 - Xu, Jiangchang A1 - Pankert, Tobias A1 - Beyer, Michel A1 - Shahamiri, Negar A1 - ten Brink, Reinier A1 - Dot, Gauthier A1 - Weschke, Charlotte A1 - van Nistelrooij, Niels A1 - Verhelst, Pieter-Jan A1 - Guo, Yan A1 - Xu, Zhibin A1 - Bienzeisler, Jonas A1 - Rashad, Ashkan A1 - Flügge, Tabea A1 - Cotton, Ross A1 - Vinayahalingam, Shankeeth A1 - Ilesan, Robert A1 - Raith, Stefan A1 - Madsen, Dennis A1 - Seibold, Constantin A1 - Xi, Tong A1 - Bergé, Stefaan A1 - Nebelung, Sven A1 - Kodym, Oldřich A1 - Sundqvist, Osku A1 - Thieringer, Florian A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Coppens, Antoine A1 - Potrusil, Thomas A1 - Kraeima, Joep A1 - Witjes, Max A1 - Wu, Guomin A1 - Chen, Xiaojun A1 - Lambrechts, Adriaan A1 - Cevidanes, Lucia H Soares A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Hermans, Alexander A1 - Truhn, Daniel A1 - Alves, Victor A1 - Egger, Jan A1 - Röhrig, Rainer A1 - Hölzle, Frank A1 - Puladi, Behrus T1 - Beyond Benchmarks: Towards Robust Artificial Intelligence Bone Segmentation in Socio-Technical Systems JF - Expert Systems With Applications N2 - Despite the advances in automated medical image segmentation, AI models still underperform in various clinical settings, challenging real-world integration. In this multicenter evaluation, we analyzed 20 state-of-the-art mandibular segmentation models across 19,218 segmentations of 1,000 clinically resampled CT/CBCT scans. We show that segmentation accuracy varies by up to 25% depending on socio-technical factors such as voxel size, bone orientation, and patient conditions such as osteosynthesis or pathology. Higher sharpness, isotropic smaller voxels, and neutral orientation significantly improved results, while metallic osteosynthesis and anatomical complexity led to significant degradation. Our findings challenge the common view of AI models as “plug-and-play” tools and suggest evidence-based optimization recommendations for both clinicians and developers. This will in turn boost the integration of AI segmentation tools in routine healthcare. Y1 - 2025 UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.06.11.25329022v1 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eswa.2025.130031 VL - 299 IS - Part D ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Komnik, Igor A1 - Funken, Johannes A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Schmidt-Wiethoff, Rüdiger A1 - Ellermann, Andree A1 - Potthast, Wolfgang T1 - Surgical planning in HTO – Alternative approaches to the Fujisawa gold-standard JF - Technology and Health Care N2 - BACKGROUND: Presurgical planning of the correction angle plays a decisive role in a high tibial osteotomy, affecting the loading situation in the knee affected by osteoarthritis. The planning approach by Fujisawa et al. aims to adjust the weight-bearing line to achieve an optimal knee joint load distribution. While this method is accessible, it may not fully consider the complexity of individual dynamic knee-loading profiles. This review aims to disclose existing alternative HTO planning methods that do not follow Fujisawa’s standard. METHODS: PubMed, Web of Science and CENTRAL databases were screened, focusing on HTO research in combination with alternative planning approaches. RESULTS: Eight out of 828 studies were included, with seven simulation studies based on finite element analysis and multi-body dynamics. The planning approaches incorporated gradual degrees of realignment parameters (weight-bearing line shift, medial proximal tibial angle, hip- knee-ankle, knee joint line orientation), simulating their effect on knee kinematics, contact force/stress, Von Mises and shear stress. Two studies proposed implementing individual correction magnitudes derived from preoperatively predicted knee adduction moments. CONCLUSION: Most planning methods depend on static alignment assessments, neglecting an adequate loading-depending profile. They are confined to their conceptual phases, making the associated planning methods unviable for current clinical use. Y1 - 2024 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-98227 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Schmidt, Timo Torsten A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Kosch, Thomas T1 - Comparing the Effects of Visual, Haptic, and Visuohaptic Encoding on Memory Retention of Digital Objects in Virtual Reality JF - NordiCHI '24: Proceedings of the 13th Nordic Conference on Human-Computer Interaction N2 - Although Virtual Reality (VR) has undoubtedly improved human interaction with 3D data, users still face difficulties retaining important details of complex digital objects in preparation for physical tasks. To address this issue, we evaluated the potential of visuohaptic integration to improve the memorability of virtual objects in immersive visualizations. In a user study (N=20), participants performed a delayed match-to-sample task where they memorized stimuli of visual, haptic, or visuohaptic encoding conditions. We assessed performance differences between the conditions through error rates and response time. We found that visuohaptic encoding significantly improved memorization accuracy compared to unimodal visual and haptic conditions. Our analysis indicates that integrating haptics into immersive visualizations enhances the memorability of digital objects. We discuss its implications for the optimal encoding design in VR applications that assist professionals who need to memorize and recall virtual objects in their daily work. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3679318.3685349 SP - 1 EP - 13 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Schmidt, Timo Torsten A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk A1 - Kosch, Thomas T1 - Assessing the Effects of Sensory Modality Conditions on Object Retention across Virtual Reality and Projected Surface Display Environments JF - Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction N2 - Haptic feedback reportedly enhances human interaction with 3D data, particularly improving the retention of mental representations of digital objects in immersive settings. However, the effectiveness of visuohaptic integration in promoting object retention across different display environments remains underexplored. Our study extends previous research on the retention effects of haptics from virtual reality to a projected surface display to assess whether earlier findings generalize to 2D environments. Participants performed a delayed match-to-sample task incorporating visual, haptic, and visuohaptic sensory feedback within a projected surface display environment. We compared error rates and response times across these sensory modalities and display environments. Our results reveal that visuohaptic integration significantly enhances object retention on projected surfaces, benefiting task performance across display environments. Our findings suggest that haptics can improve object retention without requiring fully immersive setups, offering insights for the design of interactive systems that assist professionals who rely on precise mental representations of digital objects. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3698137 VL - 8 IS - ISS SP - 255 EP - 282 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk A1 - Kosch, Thomas T1 - Evaluating Visuohaptic Integration on Memory Retention of Morphological Tomographic Images T2 - The 19th ACM SIGGRAPH International Conference on Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry N2 - Scientific visualization and tomographic imaging techniques have created unprecedented possibilities for non-destructive analyses of digital specimens in morphology. However, practitioners encounter difficulties retaining critical information from complex tomographic volumes in their workflows. In light of this challenge, we investigated the effectiveness of visuohaptic integration in enhancing memory retention of morphological data. In a within-subjects user study (N=18), participants completed a delayed match-to-sample task, where we compared error rates and response times across visual and visuohaptic sensory modality conditions. Our results indicate that visuohaptic encoding improves the retention of tomographic images, producing significantly reduced error rates and faster response times than its unimodal visual counterpart. Our findings suggest that integrating haptics into scientific visualization interfaces may support professionals in fields such as morphology, where accurate retention of complex spatial data is essential for efficient analysis and decision-making within virtual environments. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3703619.3706055 SP - 1 EP - 10 PB - ACM CY - New York, NY, USA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Trepczynski, Adam A1 - Kneifel, Paul A1 - Heyland, Mark A1 - Leskovar, Marko A1 - Moewis, Philippe A1 - Damm, Philipp A1 - Taylor, William R. A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Duda, Georg T1 - Impact of the External Knee Flexion Moment on Patello-Femoral Loading Derived from in vivo Loads and Kinematics JF - Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology N2 - Anterior knee pain and other patello-femoral (PF) complications frequently limit the success of total knee arthroplasty as the final treatment of end stage osteoarthritis. However, knowledge about the invivo loading conditions at the PF joint remains limited, as no direct measurements are available. We hypothesised that the external knee flexion moment (EFM) is highly predictive of the PF contact forces during activities with substantial flexion of the loaded knee.Six patients (65-80 years, 67-101 kg) with total knee arthroplasty (TKA) performed two activities of daily living: sit-stand-sit and squat. Tibio-femoral (TF) contact forces were measured in vivo using instrumented tibial components, while synchronously internal TF and PF kinematics were captured with mobile fluoroscopy. The measurements were used to compute PF contact forces using patient specific musculoskeletal models. The relationship between the EFM and the PF contact force was quantified using linear regression.Mean peak TF contact forces of 1.97 to 3.24 times body weight (BW) were found while peak PF forces reached 1.75 to 3.29 times body weight (BW). The peak EFM ranged from 3.2 to 5.9 %BW times body height, and was a good predictor of the PF contact force (R^2 = 0.95 and 0.88 for sit-standsit and squat, respectively).The novel combination of in vivo TF contact forces and internal patellar kinematics enabled a reliable assessment of PF contact forces. The results of the regression analysis suggest that PF forces can be estimated based solely on the EFM from quantitative gait analysis. Our study also demonstrates the relevance of PF contact forces, which reach magnitudes similar to TF forces during activities of daily living. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/fbioe.2024.1473951 VL - 12 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Amiranashvili, Tamaz A1 - Lüdke, David A1 - Li, Hongwei Bran A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Menze, Bjoern T1 - Learning continuous shape priors from sparse data with neural implicit functions JF - Medical Image Analysis N2 - Statistical shape models are an essential tool for various tasks in medical image analysis, including shape generation, reconstruction and classification. Shape models are learned from a population of example shapes, which are typically obtained through segmentation of volumetric medical images. In clinical practice, highly anisotropic volumetric scans with large slice distances are prevalent, e.g., to reduce radiation exposure in CT or image acquisition time in MR imaging. For existing shape modeling approaches, the resolution of the emerging model is limited to the resolution of the training shapes. Therefore, any missing information between slices prohibits existing methods from learning a high-resolution shape prior. We propose a novel shape modeling approach that can be trained on sparse, binary segmentation masks with large slice distances. This is achieved through employing continuous shape representations based on neural implicit functions. After training, our model can reconstruct shapes from various sparse inputs at high target resolutions beyond the resolution of individual training examples. We successfully reconstruct high-resolution shapes from as few as three orthogonal slices. Furthermore, our shape model allows us to embed various sparse segmentation masks into a common, low-dimensional latent space — independent of the acquisition direction, resolution, spacing, and field of view. We show that the emerging latent representation discriminates between healthy and pathological shapes, even when provided with sparse segmentation masks. Lastly, we qualitatively demonstrate that the emerging latent space is smooth and captures characteristic modes of shape variation. We evaluate our shape model on two anatomical structures: the lumbar vertebra and the distal femur, both from publicly available datasets. Y1 - 2024 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2024.103099 VL - 94 SP - 103099 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Riehm, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk T1 - VoxSculpt: An Open-Source Voxel Library for Tomographic Volume Sculpting in Virtual Reality T2 - 2023 9th International Conference on Virtual Reality (ICVR), Xianyang, China, 2023 N2 - Manual processing of tomographic data volumes, such as interactive image segmentation in medicine or paleontology, is considered a time-consuming and cumbersome endeavor. Immersive volume sculpting stands as a potential solution to improve its efficiency and intuitiveness. However, current open-source software solutions do not yield the required performance and functionalities. We address this issue by contributing a novel open-source game engine voxel library that supports real-time immersive volume sculpting. Our design leverages GPU instancing, parallel computing, and a chunk-based data structure to optimize collision detection and rendering. We have implemented features that enable fast voxel interaction and improve precision. Our benchmark evaluation indicates that our implementation offers a significant improvement over the state-of-the-art and can render and modify millions of visible voxels while maintaining stable performance for real-time interaction in virtual reality. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1109/ICVR57957.2023.10169420 SP - 515 EP - 523 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk T1 - Design Challenges and Opportunities of Fossil Preparation Tools and Methods T2 - Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Culture and Computer Science: Code and Materiality N2 - Fossil preparation is the activity of processing paleontological specimens for research and exhibition purposes. In addition to traditional mechanical extraction of fossils, preparation presently comprises non-destructive digital methods that are part of a relatively new field, namely virtual paleontology. Despite significant technological advances, both traditional and digital preparation remain cumbersome and time-consuming endeavors. However, this field has received scarce attention from a human-computer interaction perspective. The present study aims to elucidate the state-of-the-art for paleontological fossil preparation in order to determine its main challenges and start a conversation regarding opportunities for creating novel designs that tackle the field's current issues. We conducted a qualitative study involving both technical preparators and virtual paleontologists. The study was divided into two parts: First, we assembled technical preparators and paleontology researchers in a focus group session to discuss their workflows, obtain a preliminary understanding of their issues, and ideate solutions based on their counterparts' workflows. Next, we conducted a series of contextual inquiries involving direct observation and semi-structured in-depth interviews. We transcribed our recordings and examined the data through theoretical and inductive thematic analysis, clustering emerging themes and applying concepts from human-computer interaction and related fields. Our findings report on challenges faced by traditional and digital fossil preparators and potential opportunities to improve their tools and workflows. We contribute with a novel analysis of fossil preparation from an HCI perspective. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3623462.3623470 PB - Association for Computing Machinery CY - New York, NY, USA ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Wagendorf, Oliver A1 - Nahles, Susanne A1 - Vach, Kirstin A1 - Kernen, Florian A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Heiland, Max A1 - Flügge, Tabea T1 - The impact of teeth and dental restorations on gray value distribution in cone-beam computer tomography - a pilot study JF - International Journal of Implant Dentistry N2 - Purpose: To investigate the influence of teeth and dental restorations on the facial skeleton's gray value distributions in cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT). Methods: Gray value selection for the upper and lower jaw segmentation was performed in 40 patients. In total, CBCT data of 20 maxillae and 20 mandibles, ten partial edentulous and ten fully edentulous in each jaw, respectively, were evaluated using two different gray value selection procedures: manual lower threshold selection and automated lower threshold selection. Two sample t tests, linear regression models, linear mixed models, and Pearson's correlation coefficients were computed to evaluate the influence of teeth, dental restorations, and threshold selection procedures on gray value distributions. Results: Manual threshold selection resulted in significantly different gray values in the fully and partially edentulous mandible. (p = 0.015, difference 123). In automated threshold selection, only tendencies to different gray values in fully edentulous compared to partially edentulous jaws were observed (difference: 58–75). Significantly different gray values were evaluated for threshold selection approaches, independent of the dental situation of the analyzed jaw. No significant correlation between the number of teeth and gray values was assessed, but a trend towards higher gray values in patients with more teeth was noted. Conclusions: Standard gray values derived from CT imaging do not apply for threshold-based bone segmentation in CBCT. Teeth influence gray values and segmentation results. Inaccurate bone segmentation may result in ill-fitting surgical guides produced on CBCT data and misinterpreting bone density, which is crucial for selecting surgical protocols. Y1 - 2023 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1186/s40729-023-00493-z VL - 9 IS - 27 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grewe, Carl Martin A1 - Liu, Tuo A1 - Hildebrandt, Andrea A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - The Open Virtual Mirror Framework for Enfacement Illusions - Enhancing the Sense of Agency With Avatars That Imitate Facial Expressions JF - Behavior Research Methods Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-021-01761-9 PB - Springer ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Siqueira Rodrigues, Lucas A1 - Nyakatura, John A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Israel, Johann Habakuk T1 - An Immersive Virtual Paleontology Application T2 - 13th International Conference on Human Haptic Sensing and Touch Enabled Computer Applications, EuroHaptics 2022 N2 - Virtual paleontology studies digital fossils through data analysis and visualization systems. The discipline is growing in relevance for the evident advantages of non-destructive imaging techniques over traditional paleontological methods, and it has made significant advancements during the last few decades. However, virtual paleontology still faces a number of technological challenges, amongst which are interaction shortcomings of image segmentation applications. Whereas automated segmentation methods are seldom applicable to fossil datasets, manual exploration of these specimens is extremely time-consuming as it impractically delves into three-dimensional data through two-dimensional visualization and interaction means. This paper presents an application that employs virtual reality and haptics to virtual paleontology in order to evolve its interaction paradigms and address some of its limitations. We provide a brief overview of the challenges faced by virtual paleontology practitioners, a description of our immersive virtual paleontology prototype, and the results of a heuristic evaluation of our design. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06249-0 SP - 478 EP - 481 ER -