title: Motion gradient vector flow: an external force for tracking rolling leukocytes with shape and size constrained active contours.
abstract: Recording rolling leukocyte velocities from intravital microscopic video imagery is a critical task in inflammation research and drug validation. Since manual tracking is excessively time consuming, an automated method is desired. This paper illustrates an active contour based automated tracking method, where we propose a novel external force to guide the active contour that takes the hemodynamic flow direction into account. The construction of the proposed force field, referred to as motion gradient vector flow (MGVF), is accomplished by minimizing an energy functional involving the motion direction, and the image gradient magnitude. The tracking experiments demonstrate that MGVF can be used to track both slow- and fast-rolling leukocytes, thus extending the capture range of previously designed cell tracking techniques.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Virginia, 351 McCormick Road, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA. nray@virginia.edu
authors.forename: Nilanjan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ray
authors.forename: Scott T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Acton
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D000818:Animals; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D002465:Cell Movement / Q000502:physiology*; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D003198:Computer Simulation; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D016247:Information Storage and Retrieval / Q000379:methods; D007962:Leukocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D018345:Mice, Knockout; D018715:Microscopy, Video / Q000379:methods*; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009716:Numerical Analysis, Computer-Assisted; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012399:Rotation; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013382:Subtraction Technique