Surface Volume Estimation of Digitized Hyperplanes Using Weighted Local Configurations

• We present a method for estimating the surface volume of four-dimensional objects in discrete binary images. A surface volume weight is assigned to each 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 configuration of image elements. The total surface volume of a digital 4D object is given by a summation of the local volume contributions. Optimal volume weights are derived in order to provide an unbiased estimate with minimal variance for randomly oriented digitized planar hypersurfaces. Only 14 out of 64 possible boundary configurations appear on planar hypersurfaces. We use a marching hypercubes tetrahedrization to assign surface volume weights to the non-planar cases. The correctness of the method is verified on four-dimensional balls and cubes digitized in different sizes. The algorithm is appealingly simple; the use of only a local neighbourhood enables efficient implementations in hardware and/or in parallel architectures.

Subject headings

NATURVETENSKAP  -- Data- och informationsvetenskap -- Datorseende och robotik (hsv//swe)

NATURAL SCIENCES  -- Computer and Information Sciences -- Computer Vision and Robotics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

surface volume estimation

marching cubes

digital hyperplanes

4D

cell tiling

Image analysis

Bildanalys

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)