Optical flow estimation of the heart's short axis view using a perceptual approach

This article describes a perceptual approach to calculate the optical flow estimation of the left ventricle in a short axis view of the heart in computer tomography images. The method is based on the the Hermite transform which is an image representation model that incorporates some of the more important properties of the first stages of the human visual system. Our optical flow estimation approach incorporates a differential method that uses the steered Hermite coefficients as local constraints and uses the implicit multiresolution scheme of the Hermite transform to compute large displacements. It also involves several of the constraints seen in the current differential methods which allows obtaining an accurate optical flow. We use the anatomic short axis view of the heart to calculate the optical flow estimation instead of the original computer tomography images of the axial plane. This view allows visualizing the left ventricle like a circular structure, which is more suitable for visualization of the left ventricle motion.© 2013 SPIE.