Parabolic and hermite cubic finite elements: a flexible technique for deformable models

Uejormable models of elastic structures have been proposed for use in image analysis. The models are based on a minimum energy principle which incorporates both image information and "high level" knowledge of the structures involved. This paper reports a further development of the Finite Element Method (FEM) for use in active contour models. It is shown that parabolic and cubic Finite Elements provide a versatile technique for implementing deformable models. The method is demonstrated on MR and x-ray images of brain sections.