Shape Analysis Methods for 3D Brain and Skull Imaging

We present a framework for shape alignment that generalizes several existing methods for parametric registration. We assume that the shape is a closed genus zero surface. Our framework requires a diffeomorphic surface mapping to the 2-sphere which preserves rotation. The registration is based on maximizing spherical cross-correlation function of surface-intrinsic scalar attributes, weighted by the cross-correlation of the parameterization distortion. The similarity measure may be customized according to the surface-intrinsic scalar functions used in the application. The optimization is global and non-iterative, leading to fast running times.