A Visual Analytics Approach for Comparing Cohorts in Single-Voxel Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy Data.

Single-voxel proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy (1H-MRS) is a non-invasive in-vivo technology to measure metabolic concentrations in selected regions of interest in a tissue, e.g., the brain. 1H-MRS generates spectra of signals with different frequencies and specific intensities which can be assigned to respective metabolites in the investigated tissue and quantified. In studies designed to detect biomarkers of a specific disorder or dysfunction, the overall goal is not just to analyze a single 1H-MRS data set, but to compare patient cohorts against healthy controls. We propose a visual analytics tool for the comparative analyses of cohorts, i.e., sets of data sets. Each data set can be regarded as a multivariate data sample, in which each variable represents the concentration of a metabolite. While a standard workflow for comparative analyses of two cohorts is routinely deployed by analyzing metabolites individually, our tool allows for comparative cohort analysis in a multivariate setting. Our top-down analysis strategy uses multidimensional data visualization methods combined with statistical plots and statistical analyses. We document and evaluate the effectiveness of our approach for the interactive analysis of metabolite concentrations in three brain regions for a comparative study of an alcohol-dependent patient cohort and a healthy control group.

Testing occlusal performance by using chewing simulation with virtually designed substrate.

Physically accurate deformable models based on the finite element method (FEM) are being used for a wide range of applications, from entertainment to medicine. This article describes how we applied this method in the CAD/CAM area that is concerned with reconstructing 3D models of teeth. We simulated the process of mastication by employing a deformable model that represented the substrate, and a rigid model that represented the teeth. We extended a recent approach for substrate deformation by also modelling the fracture of the substrate by the mastication process. Although including fracturing into the process allowed us to assess a mastication result, it posed new technical challenges such as defining the start of fracturing, propagating fracture through the substrate, detecting collisions between substrate pieces after fracturing, and resolving such collisions. We developed an approach that solved these challenges. The resulting simulation allowed us to compare the functionality of different occlusal designs in a mastication process. We are convinced that these simulations are an interesting tool that could be used to improve occlusal performance, especially in complete dentures, which are nowadays being more and more digitally designed.

Automatic MRI segmentation of para-pharyngeal fat pads using interactive visual feature space analysis for classification.

BACKGROUND: Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is a public health problem. Detailed analysis of the para-pharyngeal fat pads can help us to understand the pathogenesis of OSA and may mediate the intervention of this sleeping disorder. A reliable and automatic para-pharyngeal fat pads segmentation technique plays a vital role in investigating larger data bases to identify the anatomic risk factors for the OSA. METHODS: Our research aims to develop a context-based automatic segmentation algorithm to delineate the fat pads from magnetic resonance images in a population-based study. Our segmentation pipeline involves texture analysis, connected component analysis, object-based image analysis, and supervised classification using an interactive visual analysis tool to segregate fat pads from other structures automatically. RESULTS: We developed a fully automatic segmentation technique that does not need any user interaction to extract fat pads. Our algorithm is fast enough that we can apply it to population-based epidemiological studies that provide a large amount of data. We evaluated our approach qualitatively on thirty datasets and quantitatively against the ground truths of ten datasets resulting in an average of approximately 78% detected volume fraction and a 79% Dice coefficient, which is within the range of the inter-observer variation of manual segmentation results. CONCLUSION: The suggested method produces sufficiently accurate results and has potential to be applied for the study of large data to understand the pathogenesis of the OSA syndrome.

Analyzing myocardial torsion based on tissue phase mapping cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

BACKGROUND: The purpose of this work is to analyze differences in left ventricular torsion between volunteers and patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy based on tissue phase mapping (TPM) cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR). METHODS: TPM was performed on 27 patients with non-ischemic cardiomyopathy and 14 normal volunteers. Patients underwent a standard CMR including late gadolinium enhancement (LGE) for the assessment of myocardial scar and ECG-gated cine CMR for global cardiac function. TPM was acquired in short-axis orientation at base, mid, and apex for all subjects. After evaluation by experienced observers, the patients were divided in subgroups according to the presence or absence of LGE (LGE+/LGE-), local wall motion abnormalities (WM+/WM-), and having a preserved (≥50%) or reduced (<50%) ejection fraction (EF+/EF-). TPM data was semi-automatically segmented and global LV torsion was computed for each cardiac time frame for endocardial and epicardial layers, and for the entire myocardium. RESULTS: Maximum myocardial torsion was significantly lower for patients with reduced EF compared to controls (0.21 ± 0.15°/mm vs. 0.36 ± 0.11°/mm, p = 0.018), but also for patients with wall motion abnormalities (0.21 ± 0.13°/mm vs. 0.36 ± 0.11°/mm, p = 0.004). Global myocardial torsion showed a positive correlation (r = 0.54, p < 0.001) with EF. Moreover, endocardial torsion was significantly higher than epicardial torsion for EF+ subjects (0.56 ± 0.33°/mm vs. 0.34 ± 0.18°/mm, p = 0.039) and for volunteers (0.46 ± 0.16°/mm vs. 0.30 ± 0.09°/mm, p = 0.004). The difference in maximum torsion between endo- and epicardial layers was positively correlated with EF (r = 0.47, p = 0.002) and age (r = 0.37, p = 0.016) for all subjects. CONCLUSIONS: TPM can be used to detect significant differences in LV torsion in patients with reduced EF and in the presence of local wall motion abnormalities. We were able to quantify torsion differences between the endocardium and epicardium, which vary between patient subgroups and are correlated to age and EF.

Chewing simulation with a physically accurate deformable model.

Nowadays, CAD/CAM software is being used to compute the optimal shape and position of a new tooth model meant for a patient. With this possible future application in mind, we present in this article an independent and stand-alone interactive application that simulates the human chewing process and the deformation it produces in the food substrate. Chewing motion sensors are used to produce an accurate representation of the jaw movement. The substrate is represented by a deformable elastic model based on the finite linear elements method, which preserves physical accuracy. Collision detection based on spatial partitioning is used to calculate the forces that are acting on the deformable model. Based on the calculated information, geometry elements are added to the scene to enhance the information available for the user. The goal of the simulation is to present a complete scene to the dentist, highlighting the points where the teeth came into contact with the substrate and giving information about how much force acted at these points, which therefore makes it possible to indicate whether the tooth is being used incorrectly in the mastication process. Real-time interactivity is desired and achieved within limits, depending on the complexity of the employed geometric models. The presented simulation is a first step towards the overall project goal of interactively optimizing tooth position and shape under the investigation of a virtual chewing process using real patient data (Fig 1).

De-cluttering Scatterplots with Integral Images.

Scatterplots provide a visual representation of bivariate data (or 2D embeddings of multivariate data) that allows for effective analyses of data dependencies, clusters, trends, and outliers. Unfortunately, classical scatterplots suffer from scalability issues, since growing data sizes eventually lead to overplotting and visual clutter on a screen with a fixed resolution, which hinders the data analysis process. We propose an algorithm that compensates for irregular sample distributions by a smooth transformation of the scatterplot's visual domain. Our algorithm evaluates the scatterplot's density distribution to compute a regularization mapping based on integral images of the rasterized density function. The mapping preserves the samples' neighborhood relations. Few regularization iterations suffice to achieve a nearly uniform sample distribution that efficiently uses the available screen space. We further propose approaches to visually convey the transformation that was applied to the scatterplot and compare them in a user study. We present a novel parallel algorithm for fast GPU-based integral-image computation, which allows for integrating our de-cluttering approach into interactive visual data analysis systems.

2022 IEEE Scientific Visualization Contest Winner: Multifield Analysis of Vorticity-Driven Lateral Spread in Wildfire Ensembles.

We present an interactive visual analysis tool for analyzing the spread of wildfires and what influences their evolution. Multiple time-varying 3-D scalar and vector fields are investigated and related to each other to identify causes of atypical fire spread. We present a visual analysis approach that allows for a comparative analysis of multiple runs of a simulation ensemble on different levels of detail. Overview visualizations combined with volume renderings and flow visualizations provide an intuitive understanding of the fire spread.

Multifaceted Visual Analysis of Oceanographic Simulation Ensemble Data.

The analysis of multirun oceanographic simulation data imposes various challenges ranging from visualizing multifield spatio-temporal data over properly identifying and depicting vortices to visually representing uncertainties. We present an integrated interactive visual analysis tool that enables us to overcome these challenges by employing multiple coordinated views of different facets of the data at different levels of aggregation.

Fingerprints of Element Concentrations in Infective Endocarditis Obtained by Mass Spectrometric Imaging and t-Distributed Stochastic Neighbor Embedding.

Staphylococcus aureus-induced infective endocarditis (IE) is a life-threatening disease. Differences in virulence between distinct S. aureus strains, which are partly based on the molecular mechanisms during bacterial adhesion, are not fully understood. Yet, distinct molecular or elemental patterns, occurring during specific steps in the adhesion process, may help to identify novel targets for accelerated diagnosis or improved treatment. Here, we use laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICP-MS) of post-mortem tissue slices of an established mouse model of IE to obtain fingerprints of element distributions in infected aortic valve tissue. Three S. aureus strains with different virulence due to deficiency in distinct adhesion molecules (fibronectin-binding protein A and staphylococcal protein A) were used to assess strain-specific patterns. Data analysis was performed by t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding (t-SNE) of mass spectrometry imaging data, using manual reference tissue classification in histological specimens. This procedure allowed for obtaining distinct element patterns in infected tissue for all three bacterial strains and for comparing those to patterns observed in healthy mice or after sterile inflammation of the valve. In tissue from infected mice, increased concentrations of calcium, zinc, and magnesium were observed compared to noninfected mice. Between S. aureus strains, pronounced variations were observed for manganese. The presented approach is sensitive for detection of S. aureus infection. For strain-specific tissue characterization, however, further improvements such as establishing a database with elemental fingerprints may be required.

Pulmonary Arteriovenous Pressure Gradient and Time-Averaged Mean Velocity of Small Pulmonary Arteries Can Serve as Sensitive Biomarkers in the Diagnosis of Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension: A Preclinical Study by 4D-Flow MRI.

(1) Background: Pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a serious condition that is associated with many cardiopulmonary diseases. Invasive right heart catheterization (RHC) is currently the only method for the definitive diagnosis and follow-up of PAH. In this study, we sought a non-invasive hemodynamic biomarker for the diagnosis of PAH. (2) Methods: We applied prospectively respiratory and cardiac gated 4D-flow MRI at a 9.4T preclinical scanner on three different groups of Sprague Dawley rats: baseline (n = 11), moderate PAH (n = 8), and severe PAH (n = 8). The pressure gradients as well as the velocity values were analyzed from 4D-flow data and correlated with lung histology. (3) Results: The pressure gradient between the pulmonary artery and vein on the unilateral side as well as the time-averaged mean velocity values of the small pulmonary arteries were capable of distinguishing not only between baseline and severe PAH, but also between the moderate and severe stages of the disease. (4) Conclusions: The current preclinical study suggests the pulmonary arteriovenous pressure gradient and the time-averaged mean velocity as potential biomarkers to diagnose PAH.

A fast and robust hepatocyte quantification algorithm including vein processing.

BACKGROUND: Quantification of different types of cells is often needed for analysis of histological images. In our project, we compute the relative number of proliferating hepatocytes for the evaluation of the regeneration process after partial hepatectomy in normal rat livers. RESULTS: Our presented automatic approach for hepatocyte (HC) quantification is suitable for the analysis of an entire digitized histological section given in form of a series of images. It is the main part of an automatic hepatocyte quantification tool that allows for the computation of the ratio between the number of proliferating HC-nuclei and the total number of all HC-nuclei for a series of images in one processing run. The processing pipeline allows us to obtain desired and valuable results for a wide range of images with different properties without additional parameter adjustment. Comparing the obtained segmentation results with a manually retrieved segmentation mask which is considered to be the ground truth, we achieve results with sensitivity above 90% and false positive fraction below 15%. CONCLUSIONS: The proposed automatic procedure gives results with high sensitivity and low false positive fraction and can be applied to process entire stained sections.

Aggregated Ensemble Views for Deep Water Asteroid Impact Simulations.

Simulation ensembles such as the ones simulating deep water asteroid impacts have many facets. Their analysis in terms of detecting spatiotemporal patterns, comparing multiple runs, and analyzing the influence of simulation parameters requires aggregation at multiple levels. We propose respective visual encodings embedded in an interactive visual analysis tool.

VANLO--interactive visual exploration of aligned biological networks.

BACKGROUND: Protein-protein interaction (PPI) is fundamental to many biological processes. In the course of evolution, biological networks such as protein-protein interaction networks have developed. Biological networks of different species can be aligned by finding instances (e.g. proteins) with the same common ancestor in the evolutionary process, so-called orthologs. For a better understanding of the evolution of biological networks, such aligned networks have to be explored. Visualization can play a key role in making the various relationships transparent. RESULTS: We present a novel visualization system for aligned biological networks in 3D space that naturally embeds existing 2D layouts. In addition to displaying the intra-network connectivities, we also provide insight into how the individual networks relate to each other by placing aligned entities on top of each other in separate layers. We optimize the layout of the entire alignment graph in a global fashion that takes into account inter- as well as intra-network relationships. The layout algorithm includes a step of merging aligned networks into one graph, laying out the graph with respect to application-specific requirements, splitting the merged graph again into individual networks, and displaying the network alignment in layers. In addition to representing the data in a static way, we also provide different interaction techniques to explore the data with respect to application-specific tasks. CONCLUSION: Our system provides an intuitive global understanding of aligned PPI networks and it allows the investigation of key biological questions. We evaluate our system by applying it to real-world examples documenting how our system can be used to investigate the data with respect to these key questions. Our tool VANLO (Visualization of Aligned Networks with Layout Optimization) can be accessed at http://www.math-inf.uni-greifswald.de/VANLO.

Uncertainty-aware asynchronous scattered motion interpolation using Gaussian process regression.

We address the problem of interpolating randomly non-uniformly spatiotemporally scattered uncertain motion measurements, which arises in the context of soft tissue motion estimation. Soft tissue motion estimation is of great interest in the field of image-guided soft-tissue intervention and surgery navigation, because it enables the registration of pre-interventional/pre-operative navigation information on deformable soft-tissue organs. To formally define the measurements as spatiotemporally scattered motion signal samples, we propose a novel motion field representation. To perform the interpolation of the motion measurements in an uncertainty-aware optimal unbiased fashion, we devise a novel Gaussian process (GP) regression model with a non-constant-mean prior and an anisotropic covariance function and show through an extensive evaluation that it outperforms the state-of-the-art GP models that have been deployed previously for similar tasks. The employment of GP regression enables the quantification of uncertainty in the interpolation result, which would allow the amount of uncertainty present in the registered navigation information governing the decisions of the surgeon or intervention specialist to be conveyed.

Smooth surface extraction from unstructured point-based volume data using PDEs.

Smooth surface extraction using partial differential equations (PDEs) is a well-known and widely used technique for visualizing volume data. Existing approaches operate on gridded data and mainly on regular structured grids. When considering unstructured point-based volume data where sample points do not form regular patterns nor are they connected in any form, one would typically resample the data over a grid prior to applying the known PDE-based methods. We propose an approach that directly extracts smooth surfaces from unstructured point-based volume data without prior resampling or mesh generation. When operating on unstructured data one needs to quickly derive neighborhood information. The respective information is retrieved by partitioning the 3D domain into cells using a kd-tree and operating on its cells. We exploit neighborhood information to estimate gradients and mean curvature at every sample point using a four-dimensional least-squares fitting approach. Gradients and mean curvature are required for applying the chosen PDE-based method that combines hyperbolic advection to an isovalue of a given scalar field and mean curvature flow. Since we are using an explicit time-integration scheme, time steps and neighbor locations are bounded to ensure convergence of the process. To avoid small global time steps, we use asynchronous local integration. We extract the surface by successively fitting a smooth auxiliary function to the data set. This auxiliary function is initialized as a signed distance function. For each sample and for every time step we compute the respective gradient, the mean curvature, and a stable time step. With these informations the auxiliary function is manipulated using an explicit Euler time integration. The process successively continues with the next sample point in time. If the norm of the auxiliary function gradient in a sample exceeds a given threshold at some time, the auxiliary function is reinitialized to a signed distance function. After convergence of the evolution, the resulting smooth surface is obtained by extracting the zero isosurface from the auxiliary function using direct isosurface extraction from unstructured point-based volume data and rendering the extracted surface using point-based rendering methods.

Surface extraction from multi-field particle volume data using multi-dimensional cluster visualization.

Data sets resulting from physical simulations typically contain a multitude of physical variables. It is, therefore, desirable that visualization methods take into account the entire multi-field volume data rather than concentrating on one variable. We present a visualization approach based on surface extraction from multi-field particle volume data. The surfaces segment the data with respect to the underlying multi-variate function. Decisions on segmentation properties are based on the analysis of the multi-dimensional feature space. The feature space exploration is performed by an automated multi-dimensional hierarchical clustering method, whose resulting density clusters are shown in the form of density level sets in a 3D star coordinate layout. In the star coordinate layout, the user can select clusters of interest. A selected cluster in feature space corresponds to a segmenting surface in object space. Based on the segmentation property induced by the cluster membership, we extract a surface from the volume data. Our driving applications are Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations, where each particle carries multiple properties. The data sets are given in the form of unstructured point-based volume data. We directly extract our surfaces from such data without prior resampling or grid generation. The surface extraction computes individual points on the surface, which is supported by an efficient neighborhood computation. The extracted surface points are rendered using point-based rendering operations. Our approach combines methods in scientific visualization for object-space operations with methods in information visualization for feature-space operations.

Shape-preserving Star Coordinates.

Dimensionality reduction is commonly applied to multidimensional data to reduce the complexity of their analysis. In visual analysis systems, projections embed multidimensional data into 2D or 3D spaces for graphical representation. To facilitate a robust and accurate analysis, essential characteristics of the multidimensional data shall be preserved when projecting. Orthographic star coordinates is a state-of-the-art linear projection method that avoids distortion of multidimensional clusters by restricting interactive exploration to orthographic projections. However, existing numerical methods for computing orthographic star coordinates have a number of limitations when putting them into practice. We overcome these limitations by proposing the novel concept of shapepreserving star coordinates where shape preservation is assured using a superset of orthographic projections. Our scheme is explicit, exact, simple, fast, parameter-free, and stable. To maintain a valid shape-preserving star-coordinates configuration during user interaction with one of the star-coordinates axes, we derive an algorithm that only requires us to modify the configuration of one additional compensatory axis. Different design goals can be targeted by using different strategies for selecting the compensatory axis. We propose and discuss four strategies including a strategy that approximates orthographic star coordinates very well and a data-driven strategy. We further present shape-preserving morphing strategies between two shape-preserving configurations, which can be adapted for the generation of data tours. We apply our concept to multiple data analysis scenarios to document its applicability and validate its desired properties.

Skeleton-Based Scagnostics.

Scatterplot matrices (SPLOMs) are widely used for exploring multidimensional data. Scatterplot diagnostics (scagnostics) approaches measure characteristics of scatterplots to automatically find potentially interesting plots, thereby making SPLOMs more scalable with the dimension count. While statistical measures such as regression lines can capture orientation, and graph-theoretic scagnostics measures can capture shape, there is no scatterplot characterization measure that uses both descriptors. Based on well-known results in shape analysis, we propose a scagnostics approach that captures both scatterplot shape and orientation using skeletons (or medial axes). Our representation can handle complex spatial distributions, helps discovery of principal trends in a multiscale way, scales visually well with the number of samples, is robust to noise, and is automatic and fast to compute. We define skeleton-based similarity metrics for the visual exploration and analysis of SPLOMs. We perform a user study to measure the human perception of scatterplot similarity and compare the outcome to our results as well as to graph-based scagnostics and other visual quality metrics. Our skeleton-based metrics outperform previously defined measures both in terms of closeness to perceptually-based similarity and computation time efficiency.

Visual analysis of gel-free proteome data.

We present a visual exploration system supporting protein analysis when using gel-free data acquisition methods. The data to be analyzed is obtained by coupling liquid chromatography (LC) with mass spectrometry (MS). LC-MS data have the properties of being nonequidistantly distributed in the time dimension (measured by LC) and being scattered in the mass-to-charge ratio dimension (measured by MS). We describe a hierarchical data representation and visualization method for large LC-MS data. Based on this visualization, we have developed a tool that supports various data analysis steps. Our visual tool provides a global understanding of the data, intuitive detection and classification of experimental errors, and extensions to LC-MS/MS, LC/LC-MS, and LC/LC-MS/MS data analysis. Due to the presence of randomly occurring rare isotopes within the same protein molecule, several intensity peaks may be detected that all refer to the same peptide. We have developed methods to unite such intensity peaks. This deisotoping step is visually documented by our system, such that misclassification can be detected intuitively. For differential protein expression analysis, we compute and visualize the differences in protein amounts between experiments. In order to compute the differential expression, the experimental data need to be registered. For registration, we perform a nonrigid warping step based on landmarks. The landmarks can be assigned automatically using protein identification methods. We evaluate our methods by comparing protein analysis with and without our interactive visualization-based exploration tool.

Discrete Sibson interpolation.

Natural-neighbor interpolation methods, such as Sibson's method, are well-known schemes for multivariate data fitting and reconstruction. Despite its many desirable properties, Sibson's method is computationally expensive and difficult to implement, especially when applied to higher-dimensional data. The main reason for both problems is the method's implementation based on a Voronoi diagram of all data points. We describe a discrete approach to evaluating Sibson's interpolant on a regular grid, based solely on finding nearest neighbors and rendering and blending d-dimensional spheres. Our approach does not require us to construct an explicit Voronoi diagram, is easily implemented using commodity three-dimensional graphics hardware, leads to a significant speed increase compared to traditional approaches, and generalizes easily to higher dimensions. For large scattered data sets, we achieve two-dimensional (2D) interpolation at interactive rates and 3D interpolation (3D) with computation times of a few seconds.