A Continuous and Interpretable Morphometric for Robust Quantification of Dynamic Biological Shapes

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Authors Roua Rouatbi, Juan-Esteban Suarez Cardona, Alba Villaronga Luque, Jesse V Veenvliet, Ivo F. Sbalzarini
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Last Authors Ivo F. Sbalzarini
Conference Proceedings Volume Title Proc. IEEE Intl. Symposium Biomedical Imaging (ISBI)
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Conference Name IEEE Intl. Symposium Biomedical Imaging (ISBI)
Conference Location London, UK
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Publisher IEEE
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First Page 1
Last Page 5
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Print Publication Date 2026-01-01
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Abstract We introduce the Push-Forward Signed Distance Morphometric (PF-SDM) for shape quantification in biomedical imaging. The PF-SDM compactly encodes geometric and topological properties of closed shapes, including their skeleton and symmetries. This provides robust and interpretable features for shape comparison and machine learning. The PF-SDM is mathematically smooth, providing access to gradients and differential-geometric quantities. It also extends to temporal dynamics and allows fusing spatial intensity distributions, such as genetic markers, with shape dynamics. We present the PF-SDM theory, benchmark it on synthetic data, and apply it to predicting body-axis formation in mouse gastruloids, outperforming a CNN baseline in both accuracy and speed.
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DOI 10.1109/ISBI61048.2026.11515685
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Created By sbalzari
Added Date 2026-06-10
Last Edited By sbalzari
Last Edited Date 2026-06-10 08:57:59.543
Library ID 9240
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