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 - 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 - 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 - 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 - CHAP A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - von Tycowicz, Christoph T1 - Geodesic B-Score for Improved Assessment of Knee Osteoarthritis T2 - Proc. Information Processing in Medical Imaging (IPMI) N2 - Three-dimensional medical imaging enables detailed understanding of osteoarthritis structural status. However, there remains a vast need for automatic, thus, reader-independent measures that provide reliable assessment of subject-specific clinical outcomes. To this end, we derive a consistent generalization of the recently proposed B-score to Riemannian shape spaces. We further present an algorithmic treatment yielding simple, yet efficient computations allowing for analysis of large shape populations with several thousand samples. Our intrinsic formulation exhibits improved discrimination ability over its Euclidean counterpart, which we demonstrate for predictive validity on assessing risks of total knee replacement. This result highlights the potential of the geodesic B-score to enable improved personalized assessment and stratification for interventions. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78191-0_14 SP - 177 EP - 188 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hembus, Jessica A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Bader, Rainer T1 - Establishment of a rolling-sliding test bench to analyze abrasive wear propagation of different bearing materials for knee implants JF - Applied Sciences N2 - Currently, new materials for knee implants need to be extensively and expensive tested in a knee wear simulator in a realized design. However, using a rolling-sliding test bench, these materials can be examined under the same test conditions but with simplified geometries. In the present study, the test bench was optimized, and forces were adapted to the physiological contact pressure in the knee joint using the available geometric parameters. Various polymers made of polyethylene and polyurethane articulating against test wheels made of cobalt-chromium and aluminum titanate were tested in the test bench using adapted forces based on ISO 14243-1. Polyurethane materials showed distinctly higher wear rates than polyethylene materials and showed inadequate wear resistance for use as knee implant material. Thus, the rolling-sliding test bench is an adaptable test setup for evaluating newly developed bearing materials for knee implants. It combines the advantages of screening and simulator tests and allows testing of various bearing materials under physiological load and tribological conditions of the human knee joint. The wear behavior of different material compositions and the influence of surface geometry and quality can be initially investigated without the need to produce complex implant prototypes of total knee endoprosthesis or interpositional spacers. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3390/app11041886 VL - 11 IS - 4 ER - TY - GEN A1 - Tack, Alexander A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Towards novel osteoarthritis biomarkers: Multi-criteria evaluation of 46,996 segmented knee MRI data from the Osteoarthritis Initiative (Supplementary Material) T2 - PLOS One N2 - Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are the state-of-the-art for automated assessment of knee osteoarthritis (KOA) from medical image data. However, these methods lack interpretability, mainly focus on image texture, and cannot completely grasp the analyzed anatomies’ shapes. In this study we assess the informative value of quantitative features derived from segmentations in order to assess their potential as an alternative or extension to CNN-based approaches regarding multiple aspects of KOA A fully automated method is employed to segment six anatomical structures around the knee (femoral and tibial bones, femoral and tibial cartilages, and both menisci) in 46,996 MRI scans. Based on these segmentations, quantitative features are computed, i.e., measurements such as cartilage volume, meniscal extrusion and tibial coverage, as well as geometric features based on a statistical shape encoding of the anatomies. The feature quality is assessed by investigating their association to the Kellgren-Lawrence grade (KLG), joint space narrowing (JSN), incident KOA, and total knee replacement (TKR). Using gold standard labels from the Osteoarthritis Initiative database the balanced accuracy (BA), the area under the Receiver Operating Characteristic curve (AUC), and weighted kappa statistics are evaluated. Features based on shape encodings of femur, tibia, and menisci plus the performed measurements showed most potential as KOA biomarkers. Differentiation between healthy and severely arthritic knees yielded BAs of up to 99%, 84% were achieved for diagnosis of early KOA. Substantial agreement with weighted kappa values of 0.73, 0.73, and 0.79 were achieved for classification of the grade of medial JSN, lateral JSN, and KLG, respectively. The AUC was 0.60 and 0.75 for prediction of incident KOA and TKR within 5 years, respectively. Quantitative features from automated segmentations yield excellent results for KLG and JSN classification and show potential for incident KOA and TKR prediction. The validity of these features as KOA biomarkers should be further evaluated, especially as extensions of CNN-based approaches. To foster such developments we make all segmentations publicly available together with this publication. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.12752/8328 N1 - 46,996 automated segmentations for data from the OAI database. VL - 16 IS - 10 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Sekuboyina, Anjany A1 - Husseini, Malek E. A1 - Bayat, Amirhossein A1 - Löffler, Maximilian A1 - Liebl, Hans A1 - Li, Hongwei A1 - Tetteh, Giles A1 - Kukačka, Jan A1 - Payer, Christian A1 - Štern, Darko A1 - Urschler, Martin A1 - Chen, Maodong A1 - Cheng, Dalong A1 - Lessmann, Nikolas A1 - Hu, Yujin A1 - Wang, Tianfu A1 - Yang, Dong A1 - Xu, Daguang A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Amiranashvili, Tamaz A1 - Ehlke, Moritz A1 - Lamecker, Hans A1 - Lehnert, Sebastian A1 - Lirio, Marilia A1 - de Olaguer, Nicolás Pérez A1 - Ramm, Heiko A1 - Sahu, Manish A1 - Tack, Alexander A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Jiang, Tao A1 - Ma, Xinjun A1 - Angerman, Christoph A1 - Wang, Xin A1 - Brown, Kevin A1 - Kirszenberg, Alexandre A1 - Puybareau, Élodie A1 - Chen, Di A1 - Bai, Yiwei A1 - Rapazzo, Brandon H. A1 - Yeah, Timyoas A1 - Zhang, Amber A1 - Xu, Shangliang A1 - Hou, Feng A1 - He, Zhiqiang A1 - Zeng, Chan A1 - Xiangshang, Zheng A1 - Liming, Xu A1 - Netherton, Tucker J. A1 - Mumme, Raymond P. A1 - Court, Laurence E. A1 - Huang, Zixun A1 - He, Chenhang A1 - Wang, Li-Wen A1 - Ling, Sai Ho A1 - Huynh, Lê Duy A1 - Boutry, Nicolas A1 - Jakubicek, Roman A1 - Chmelik, Jiri A1 - Mulay, Supriti A1 - Sivaprakasam, Mohanasankar A1 - Paetzold, Johannes C. A1 - Shit, Suprosanna A1 - Ezhov, Ivan A1 - Wiestler, Benedikt A1 - Glocker, Ben A1 - Valentinitsch, Alexander A1 - Rempfler, Markus A1 - Menze, Björn H. A1 - Kirschke, Jan S. T1 - VerSe: A Vertebrae labelling and segmentation benchmark for multi-detector CT images JF - Medical Image Analysis N2 - Vertebral labelling and segmentation are two fundamental tasks in an automated spine processing pipeline. Reliable and accurate processing of spine images is expected to benefit clinical decision support systems for diagnosis, surgery planning, and population-based analysis of spine and bone health. However, designing automated algorithms for spine processing is challenging predominantly due to considerable variations in anatomy and acquisition protocols and due to a severe shortage of publicly available data. Addressing these limitations, the Large Scale Vertebrae Segmentation Challenge (VerSe) was organised in conjunction with the International Conference on Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) in 2019 and 2020, with a call for algorithms tackling the labelling and segmentation of vertebrae. Two datasets containing a total of 374 multi-detector CT scans from 355 patients were prepared and 4505 vertebrae have individually been annotated at voxel level by a human-machine hybrid algorithm (https://osf.io/nqjyw/, https://osf.io/t98fz/). A total of 25 algorithms were benchmarked on these datasets. In this work, we present the results of this evaluation and further investigate the performance variation at the vertebra level, scan level, and different fields of view. We also evaluate the generalisability of the approaches to an implicit domain shift in data by evaluating the top-performing algorithms of one challenge iteration on data from the other iteration. The principal takeaway from VerSe: the performance of an algorithm in labelling and segmenting a spine scan hinges on its ability to correctly identify vertebrae in cases of rare anatomical variations. The VerSe content and code can be accessed at: https://github.com/anjany/verse. Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2021.102166 VL - 73 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Picht, Thomas A1 - Le Calve, Maxime A1 - Tomasello, Rosario A1 - Fekonja, Lucius A1 - Gholami, Mohammad Fardin A1 - Bruhn, Matthias A1 - Zwick, Carola A1 - Rabe, Jürgen P. A1 - Müller-Birn, Claudia A1 - Vajkoczy, Peter A1 - Sauer, Igor M. A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Nyakatura, John A. A1 - Ribault, Patricia A1 - Pulvermüller, Friedemann T1 - A note on neurosurgical resection and why we need to rethink cutting JF - Neurosurgery Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1093/neuros/nyab326 VL - 89 IS - 5 SP - 289 EP - 291 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 - TY - GEN A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - von Tycowicz, Christoph T1 - Geodesic B-Score for Improved Assessment of Knee Osteoarthritis N2 - Three-dimensional medical imaging enables detailed understanding of osteoarthritis structural status. However, there remains a vast need for automatic, thus, reader-independent measures that provide reliable assessment of subject-specific clinical outcomes. To this end, we derive a consistent generalization of the recently proposed B-score to Riemannian shape spaces. We further present an algorithmic treatment yielding simple, yet efficient computations allowing for analysis of large shape populations with several thousand samples. Our intrinsic formulation exhibits improved discrimination ability over its Euclidean counterpart, which we demonstrate for predictive validity on assessing risks of total knee replacement. This result highlights the potential of the geodesic B-score to enable improved personalized assessment and stratification for interventions. T3 - ZIB-Report - 21-09 KW - Statistical shape analysis KW - Osteoarthritis KW - Geometric statistics KW - Riemannian manifolds Y1 - 2021 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:0297-zib-81930 SN - 1438-0064 ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Grewe, Carl Martin A1 - Liu, Tuo A1 - Kahl, Christoph A1 - Andrea, Hildebrandt A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Statistical Learning of Facial Expressions Improves Realism of Animated Avatar Faces JF - Frontiers in Virtual Reality Y1 - 2021 U6 - https://doi.org/10.3389/frvir.2021.619811 VL - 2 SP - 1 EP - 13 PB - Frontiers ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Glatzeder, Korbinian A1 - Komnik, Igor A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Zachow, Stefan A1 - Potthast, Wolfgang T1 - Dynamic pressure analysis of novel interpositional knee spacer implants in 3D-printed human knee models JF - Scientific Reports N2 - Alternative treatment methods for knee osteoarthritis (OA) are in demand, to delay the young (< 50 Years) patient’s need for osteotomy or knee replacement. Novel interpositional knee spacers shape based on statistical shape model (SSM) approach and made of polyurethane (PU) were developed to present a minimally invasive method to treat medial OA in the knee. The implant should be supposed to reduce peak strains and pain, restore the stability of the knee, correct the malalignment of a varus knee and improve joint function and gait. Firstly, the spacers were tested in artificial knee models. It is assumed that by application of a spacer, a significant reduction in stress values and a significant increase in the contact area in the medial compartment of the knee will be registered. Biomechanical analysis of the effect of novel interpositional knee spacer implants on pressure distribution in 3D-printed knee model replicas: the primary purpose was the medial joint contact stress-related biomechanics. A secondary purpose was a better understanding of medial/lateral redistribution of joint loading. Six 3D printed knee models were reproduced from cadaveric leg computed tomography. Each of four spacer implants was tested in each knee geometry under realistic arthrokinematic dynamic loading conditions, to examine the pressure distribution in the knee joint. All spacers showed reduced mean stress values by 84–88% and peak stress values by 524–704% in the medial knee joint compartment compared to the non-spacer test condition. The contact area was enlarged by 462–627% as a result of the inserted spacers. Concerning the appreciable contact stress reduction and enlargement of the contact area in the medial knee joint compartment, the premises are in place for testing the implants directly on human knee cadavers to gain further insights into a possible tool for treating medial knee osteoarthritis. Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-20463-6 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 - Amiranashvili, Tamaz A1 - Lüdke, David A1 - Li, Hongwei A1 - Menze, Bjoern A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Learning Shape Reconstruction from Sparse Measurements with Neural Implicit Functions T2 - Medical Imaging with Deep Learning N2 - Reconstructing anatomical shapes from sparse or partial measurements relies on prior knowledge of shape variations that occur within a given population. Such shape priors are learned from example shapes, obtained by segmenting volumetric medical images. For existing models, the resolution of a learned shape prior is limited to the resolution of the training data. However, in clinical practice, volumetric images are often acquired with highly anisotropic voxel sizes, e.g. to reduce image acquisition time in MRI or radiation exposure in CT imaging. The missing shape information between the slices prohibits existing methods to learn a high-resolution shape prior. We introduce a method for high-resolution shape reconstruction from sparse measurements without relying on high-resolution ground truth for training. Our method is based on neural implicit shape representations and learns a continuous shape prior only from highly anisotropic segmentations. Furthermore, it is able to learn from shapes with a varying field of view and can reconstruct from various sparse input configurations. We demonstrate its effectiveness on two anatomical structures: vertebra and femur, and successfully reconstruct high-resolution shapes from sparse segmentations, using as few as three orthogonal slices. Y1 - 2022 ER - TY - CHAP A1 - Lüdke, David A1 - Amiranashvili, Tamaz A1 - Ambellan, Felix A1 - Ezhov, Ivan A1 - Menze, Bjoern A1 - Zachow, Stefan T1 - Landmark-free Statistical Shape Modeling via Neural Flow Deformations T2 - Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention - MICCAI 2022 N2 - Statistical shape modeling aims at capturing shape variations of an anatomical structure that occur within a given population. Shape models are employed in many tasks, such as shape reconstruction and image segmentation, but also shape generation and classification. Existing shape priors either require dense correspondence between training examples or lack robustness and topological guarantees. We present FlowSSM, a novel shape modeling approach that learns shape variability without requiring dense correspondence between training instances. It relies on a hierarchy of continuous deformation flows, which are parametrized by a neural network. Our model outperforms state-of-the-art methods in providing an expressive and robust shape prior for distal femur and liver. We show that the emerging latent representation is discriminative by separating healthy from pathological shapes. Ultimately, we demonstrate its effectiveness on two shape reconstruction tasks from partial data. Our source code is publicly available (https://github.com/davecasp/flowssm). Y1 - 2022 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-16434-7_44 VL - 13432 PB - Springer, Cham ER -