System and Method for Landmark-Driven Virtual Colonoscopy – IP 1420

Florida International University inventors have developed a Landmark-DrivenVirtual Colonoscopy with Decorated Surface Mapping and Registration as aneffective mapping and registration method for virtual colonoscopies and otherlandmark-driven applications. The landmark method allows for understanding thenature of landmark curves on a 2D domain. This method provides a canonical andstraightforward view of the long, convoluted and folded tubular colon surface.This well-structured view represents both local and global geometric structuresand is more accessible for reading or automatic screening than conformal viewswith broken features. Using the quasiconformal geometry, the proposedflattening method formulates as a quasiconformal (QC-map) where the landmarks(such as taeniae coli and flexures) are mapped to vertical and horizontalstraight lines and distortion is minimized. The novel surface mapping andregistration method is capable of computing optimal mapping over canonicaldomains with straight segments, where curve constraints become linear. Due tothe linearity of harmonic mapping and the 1-form method, algorithms are easy tocompute, efficient and practical. Shantanu Balkundi sbalkund@fiu.edu 305-348-8061