The group is composed of several researchers from the departments of Computer Science and Statistics and Research. Operational with a long history of working together, along with the incorporation of other people who arrived later to the Computer Science department and several collaborators, also linked by previous joint research, from the Universitat Jaume I of Castellón. The most general common nexus is computer vision and image analysis, both 2D and recently 3D, with a special focus on medical imaging and the one generated by biological processes. The common goal is to provide experience, curriculum and applicable solutions to medical or industrial problems related to image analysis, shape analysis, reconstruction and modelling of anatomical structures and retrieval of information from image databases. Due to the complexity of the software that must be developed, a formal vision which deals with the modelling of the software and its interaction with the user is necessary. In particular, the research activity carried out to date, and which is intended to be given even greater cohesion, is organised along the following lines:

• Segmentation and co-registration of anatomical structures, in particular from radiology images, magnetic resonance images, positron emission tomography (PET) images or other modalities, if required. The statistical analysis of the shapes obtained for their comparison, indexing or modelling requires the use of morphometric techniques that connect this line to the next.
• Morphometry, understood as the statistical analysis of shapes, both 2D and 3D, to determine their temporal variations or between groups of cases and to obtain representative prototypes of shape classes.
• Computational Physiology, understood as the multi-scale modelling of biological and medical processes by means of ICT tools to better understand pathophysiology and improve the diagnosis and treatment of diseases. Larger scale modelling (organs) connects this line to the previous one, as long as shape analysis is applied to organs such as the liver or the heart; smaller scale modelling connects it to the next line,
• Stochastic spatio-temporal models for the analysis of dynamic processes from image sequences. In particular, statistical methodologies based on univariate and bivariate germ-grain processes that have been used so far to model processes in cell biology is applied by analysing images generated by confocal microscopy.
• Image and shape retrieval based on the visual content of large image or shape databases, in general, not manually labelled with a descriptive text, with special focus on human morphometry and medical image databases. This supports the organisation and semantic description of the case studies used in previous lines.
• Software production methods and modelling of software interaction with the user. This transversal line analyses and arranges the software produced (in fact, the main applicable outcome of our research) so that it is correct, reusable, extensible and easily manageable (in the case of final products) by content-competent but non-computer-specialised users, in particular doctors or health personnel. The applicability of this research is ocused on the biomedical area, and has its ultimate goal in clinical application. However, there are interesting derivations in fields such as basic research in areas like cell biology, or material science and other more direct practical utilities (design of communication and sensor networks, clothing design, shopping recommendation systems that use the visual aspect of objects, etc.).

Collaborators

• Irene Epifanio López - Universitat Jaume I de Castelló
• María Victoria Ibáñez Gual - Universitat Jaume I de Castelló

• Manufacture of other outerwear
• Manufacture of medical and dental instruments and supplies
• Computer programming activities
• Research and experimental development on biotechnology
• Computer consultancy activities