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50
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
April 2006 - December 2008
January 2009 - August 2016
January 2002 - August 2004
Education
January 2002 - August 2004
University of Pisa
Field of study
- Computer Science
October 1996 - October 2001
University of Catania
Field of study
- Computer Science
Publications
Publications (50)
A set of mathematical descriptors was devised to describe structural relationships between nanostructures
in micrographs. The ability of these descriptors to measure size, shape and distribution of nanostructures
was assessed on Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (CLSM) micrographs of treated milk, in
which fat was stained. Comparisons of scores ob...
The efficiency of lossless compression algorithms for fixed-palette images (indexed images) may change if a different indexing scheme is adopted. Many lossless compression algorithms adopt a differential-predictive approach. Hence, if the spatial distribution of the indexes over the image is smooth, greater compression ratios may be obtained. Becau...
CMOS video cameras with high dynamic range (HDR) output are particularly suitable for driving assistance applications, where lighting conditions can strongly vary, going from direct sunlight to dark areas in tunnels. However, common visualization devices can only handle a low dynamic range, and thus a dynamic range reduction is needed. Many algorit...
In the last decades, image analysis has been gaining importance for analyzing the microstructure of dairy products. Unfortunately, the basic knowledge of most microscopists about image analysis capabilities often produces misleading results. This chapter has the ambitious purpose of guiding readers through some technicalities of quantitative image...
Rheological properties of food products are strongly related to their microstructure. Microscopy is thus a preferred tool in food research. In food science, microscopy has long been used for visual inspection. Recently, however, quantitative analysis has become the new trend. In spite of this, only a few experts in computer vision are actively invo...
Supervised learning approaches to image segmentation receive considerable interest due to their power and flexibility. However, the training phase is not painless, often being long and tedious. Accurate image labelling can take several hours of expert operators' valuable time. User interfaces are often specifically designed to assist the user for t...
Milk fat globules are subject to several changes due to milk industrial processes and storage conditions. There is a potential industrial interest in monitoring changes in milk microstructure subject to various sanitation treatments and different storage temperatures. Most variations are related to the milk fat globules membrane (MFGM), whose main...
A set of mathematical descriptors was devised to describe structural relationships between nanostructures in micrographs. The ability of these descriptors to measure size, shape and distribution of nanostructures was assessed on Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope (CLSM) micrographs of treated milk, in which fat was stained. Comparisons of scores ob...
Vector representation of digital images offer a number of advantages over the more common raster representation, such as scalability and resolution independence. Many efforts have been addressed to scalable raster representations for photographic imagery for portable applications. However, they lack the flexibility and simplicity of vector represen...
The models produced by means of the available 3D-scanning technologies are considered accurate enough for most applications. Unfortunately, the acquisition of complex objects is still a demanding process that cannot be performed by non-specialists. Among the open problems, one of the most difficult to grasp is the planning of the acquisition sessio...
Description of microscopic features is often accomplished by qualitative inspection of micrographs. However,
assessing the differences responsible for the variation of rheological properties requires taking measurements
of microscopic features. A statistically-founded algorithm is proposed for automatic
identification of cheese micro-features in Sc...
Microscopy is often employed in food research to inspect the microstructural features of food samples. Accurate detection
of microscopic features is required for reliable quantitative analysis. We propose a user-assisted approach that can be easily
integrated into a graphical interface. The proposed algorithm is based on a fast approximation of the...
We address the problem of segmenting bone structures from CT scans of the knee joint, in the level set framework. Our method
is based on intensity profiles along the normals to the evolving contour. The evolution is guided by the similarity of image
intensity profiles to profile models. The evolution stops when the intensity profiles closely match...
In surgical knee replacement, the damaged knee joint is replaced with artificial prostheses. An accurate clinical evaluation must be carried out before applying knee prostheses to ensure optimal outcome from surgical operations and to reduce the probability of having long-term problems. Useful information can be inferred from estimates of the stres...
Portable image acquisition devices often operate in challenging outdoor environments. The quality of the acquired scenes is often low due to the low dynamics of current sensors. Moreover, these sensors are typically equipped with low-cost hardware. Hence, the image-enhancement algorithms are bounded to work in real time using limited resources and...
Outcome evaluation in cosmetic and reconstructive surgery of the breast is commonly performed visually or employing bi-dimensional photography. The reconstructive process in the era of anatomical implants requires excellent survey capabilities that mainly rely on surgeon experience. In this paper we present a set of parameters to unambiguously esti...
Computer-aided diagnosis for pre-operative planning and post-operative outcome evaluation is widely considered an important topic for next-generation surgery. 3D models of the patients' anatomical structures can be highly valuable in this context. The accuracy of these models is strongly dependent on the classification and segmentation algorithms a...
In surgical knee replacement, the damaged knee joint is replaced with artificial prostheses. An accurate clinical evaluation must be carried out before applying knee prosthe-ses to ensure optimal outcome from surgical operations and to reduce the probability of having long-term problems. Useful information can be inferred from estimates of the stre...
Digital 3D models of patients' organs or tissues are often needed for surgical planning and outcome evaluation, or to select pros-theses adapted to patients' anatomy. Tissue classification is one of the hardest problems in automatic model generation from raw data. The existing solutions do not give reliable estimates of the accuracy of the resultin...
Structural properties of cheese highly influence its chemical, mechanical and nutritive properties. The analysis and quantification of relevant fea- tures in cheese imagery is the basis of modern food microscopy. Processing Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) images is a powerful tool to estimate microstructural cheese features. In this paper, we pr...
A new method is proposed to unambiguously define a geometric partitioning of 3D models of female thorax. A breast partitioning scheme is derived from simple geometric primitives and well-defined anatomical points. Relevant measurements can be extrapolated from breast partition. Our method has been tested on a number of breast 3D models acquired by...
This paper reports a multidisciplinary research between computer science and plastic and reconstructive surgery. In particular, a new method is proposed to unambiguously define a geometric partitioning of a large thoracic area including the breast mound. The new technique uses only well-defined anatomical points, defined and selected by surgeons. A...
In surgical knee replacement, the damaged knee joint is replaced with artificial prostheses. An accurate clinical evaluation must be carried out before applying knee prostheses to ensure optimal outcome from surgical oper- ations and to reduce the probability of having long-term problems. Useful information can be inferred from CT scans of the knee...
In this paper three case studies are briefly presented and discussed regarding medical imaging applications. We report in some detail the activity of our laboratory related to: microarray image analysis, segmentation of 3D computed tomography imagery, breast shape analysis. Some of these results are being validated by people working in the related...
A new generation of acquisition devices with high dynamics is rapidly overcoming the limitations of current hardware. The dynamic range of visualisation devices is lower by some orders of magnitude with respect to acquisition hardware. Dedicated algorithms are needed to fill the gap between the high dynamics of acquired scenes and the low dynamic r...
Recent years have seen an increasing interest in the acquisition of scenes that have a dynamic range far greater than that of conventional acquisition devices. Some software methods have been devised to build high dynamic range (HDR) images by multi-exposure. HDR sensors have also recently appeared. On the other hand, common visualization devices s...
Refurbishing Michelangelo's David has produced several useful restoration guidelines. These guidelines can help restorers select the proper procedures for the task and, objectively, assess the results. The work also has helped us develop innovative ways to process and visualize 3D data in cultural heritage projects. The David restoration was an ide...
We describe an automatic system for fast unattended acquisition of accurate and complete 3D models, called RoboScan. The design goal is to reduce the three main bottlenecks in human-assisted 3D scanning: the selection of the range maps to be taken (view planning), the positioning of the scanner in the environment, and the range maps' alignment. The...
Although in recent years the 3D-scanning field has reached a good level of maturity, it is still far from being perceived by common users as a 3D-photography approach, as simple as standard photography is. The main reason for that is that obtaining good 3D models without human intervention is still very hard. In particular, two problems remain open...
The program of scientific investigations planned in the framework of the restoration of Michelangelo's David produced several useful guidelines for defining and developing innovative ways to process and visualize 3D data in cultural heritage applications. Our ultimate goal was to include 3D graphics among the tools which can help restorers select t...
Modern 3D scanning technologies allow to reconstruct 3D digital representations of Cultural Heritage artifacts in a semi-automatic way, characterized by very high accuracy and wealth of details. The availability of an accurate digital representation opens several possibilities of utilization to experts (restorers, archivists, museum curators), or t...
The range map registration (or alignment) phase is the main bottleneck in the D scanning pipeline due to the amount of user intervention required. The standard approach to registration consists of an ini- tial rough alignment followed by an automatic re- fining technique (ICP). Automatic registration is an active research area, since it is the miss...
This paper presents a method to optimize the visual quality of JPEG2000-compressed images using an adaptive approach to assign more bits to regions in which errors are more visible, maintaining the global bit-rate unchanged. The encoder partitions the image into rectangular blocks called "tiles" to perform the compression. The proposed approach is...
The efficiency of lossless compression algorithms for fixed palette images (also called indexed images) changes if a different indexing scheme is adopted. Indeed, these algorithms adopt a differential-predictive approach of some sort: if the spatial distribution of the indexes over the image is smooth, greater compression ratios may be obtained. It...
This paper presents a method to optimize the visual quality of JPEG2000-compressed images using an adaptive approach to assign more bits to regions in which errors are more visible, maintaining the global bit-rate unchanged.
The efficiency of lossless compression algorithms for fixed
palette images (also called indexed images) changes if a different
indexing scheme is adopted. Indeed, these algorithms adopt a
differential-predictive approach of some sort: if the spatial
distribution of the indexes over the image is smooth, greater
compression ratios may be obtained. It...
The efficiency of lossless compression algorithms for fixed palette images (also called indexed images) changes if a different indexing scheme is adopted. Indeed, these algorithms adopt a differential-predictive approach of some sort: if the spatial distribution of the indexes over the image is smooth, greater compression ratios may be obtained. It...