[vtkusers] going from binary images to 2D contours

David Gobbi david.gobbi at gmail.com
Fri Mar 2 17:39:11 EST 2012 

I think the best thing would be for the default MaximumLength to be
VTK_INT_MAX.  The current default of 1000 is arbitrary, does anyone
know why it was chosen?  Maybe because of an old graphics hardware
limit?

Warning if the maximum length is exceeded doesn't work for people who
set MaximumLength to a small number on purpose.  For example, when
generating triangle strips for rendering, I usually set MaximumLength
to 10 because a higher number degrades the performance of the
CellPicker and CellLocator.

 - David


On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 3:08 PM, Bill Lorensen <bill.lorensen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps we should warn the user if the maximum length is met. A
> warning certainly would have saved Mark some time.
>
> Bill
>
> On Fri, Mar 2, 2012 at 12:11 AM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:
>> You can set MaximumLength as high as you need to.  The only
>> downside is that some filters are less efficient when the input data
>> has really long polylines or really long triangle strips.  These filters
>> include several you are familiar with: vtkCutter, vtkClipPolyData,
>> vtkLinearExtrusionFIlter.  But unless you are applying these filters
>> after vtkStripper, there is no downside at all.
>>
>>  - David
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 9:50 PM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Hi David,
>>>
>>> It seems that the culprit was the Maximum Length variable; when that
>>> got set to 10000, instead of the default of 1000, the resulting masks
>>> work quite well.  The resulting masks look like the marching squares
>>> output, but the response from the rest of the program are much faster.
>>>
>>> I'm just curious-- are there any other consequences of changing that
>>> variable that you're aware of?
>>>
>>> I've also seen the double/float problem, but I'm not sure it's
>>> entirely relevant (yet).
>>>
>>> Thanks for your help,
>>> Mark
>>>
>>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:44 PM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> The stripper is the only VTK filter for joining line segments
>>>> together, it is the appropriate filter to be using here.  It's failing
>>>> because it is getting bad input.  Here's what I think is happening:
>>>>
>>>> I'm guessing that you're images have very high resolution.  The
>>>> vtkMarchingSquares filter uses single-precision floats, which have
>>>> an epsilon of around 1e-7.  Because of this rather large epsilon,
>>>> together with the shortness of the line segments that result from
>>>> having a high-res image, the point locator in vtkMarchingSquares is
>>>> sometimes going to merge points that it shouldn't, giving rise to tiny
>>>> degenerate loops in the output that confuse the vtkStripper.
>>>>
>>>> For my own code for generating contours (the code I linked earlier),
>>>> I wrote my own marching squares algorithm that uses double precision.
>>>> So failures due to accidentally merged points are still possible, but
>>>> are a billion times less likely due to the increased precision.  If you
>>>> have compiled your own VTK, you could just edit the line in
>>>> vtkMarchingSquares that reads vtkPoints::New() and change it to
>>>> vtkPoints::New(VTK_DOUBLE) instead, it might make the problem
>>>> go away.
>>>>
>>>> (As an aside, one of the problem with VTK, in general, is that it
>>>> relies too much on floating-point comparisons for many of its
>>>> algorithms),
>>>>
>>>>  - David
>>>>
>>>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>
>>>>> It appears that the big time cost is that the marching squares output
>>>>> is several thousand line segments, each with three points.  The
>>>>> stripper bounces the number of line segments down to 38, and that
>>>>> makes the rest of the program much faster.
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there a vtk filter, other than the stripper, that can 'linearize'
>>>>> all of those lines into a single line, if they are in fact continuous
>>>>> (as they are in this case)?  A joining filter or the like?  I can
>>>>> write something on my own that attaches the line segments, one to
>>>>> another, but if the solution already exists, I'd like to go with
>>>>> what's tested.
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>> Mark
>>>>>
>>>>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You're right, removing the stripper removed those errors.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The program is now quite a bit slower-- I suspect that the stripper
>>>>>> was causing some other code to be able to run faster.  That will
>>>>>> probably be my next question, once I get a profiler attached to this.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Thanks!
>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On Thu, Mar 1, 2012 at 7:44 AM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Sorry, I made a mistake earlier; I'm using marching squares, not
>>>>>>> cubes-- but I am following it with the stripper, which I'll try
>>>>>>> removing now.  And if that doesn't work, I'll check the stripper
>>>>>>> output for single polylines per contours.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> Thanks for the starting point,
>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 9:03 PM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>> From the image, the problem looks fairly obvious: the contour points
>>>>>>>> aren't in order, so when you draw lines between the points, you get
>>>>>>>> extra lines that cross the image.  So probably the most important
>>>>>>>> question is, what do you do, if anything, to make sure that the points
>>>>>>>> in the contours that you produce from the binary image are correctly
>>>>>>>> ordered?
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> In your other email you mentioned vtkMarchingSquares, and in this
>>>>>>>> email you say you use vtkMarchingCubes (followed, I'm guessing, by
>>>>>>>> vtkCutter).  Then maybe you're using vtkStripper to try to get the
>>>>>>>> points into the correct order before saving them?  If you are using
>>>>>>>> vtkStripper, it looks like it is producing multiple polylines per
>>>>>>>> contour, when it should just be producing one polyline per contour.
>>>>>>>> This could be the result of numeric precision issues in vtkCutter
>>>>>>>> (given the choice, you should use vtkMarchingSquares on each slice,
>>>>>>>> rather than vtkMarchingCubes followed by cutter).
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>  - David
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 9:17 PM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>> Hi David,
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Maybe I should just send you my data :)  I don't think that my problem
>>>>>>>>> has to do with being near boundaries, as my objects are away from the
>>>>>>>>> edges of the image (but not in z-- that's solved that by padding the
>>>>>>>>> image by a plane in either direction in z).
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The problem I'm having is that, somewhere along the way, the contours
>>>>>>>>> are being transformed from 'proper' contours, in the case of the
>>>>>>>>> larger mask, to ones with extra connections.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> The binarization is done via the process we discussed on the other
>>>>>>>>> thread; that is, the contour is binarized by first following that
>>>>>>>>> function to translate polygons to lines, then
>>>>>>>>> vtkPolyDataToImageStencil, then vtkImageStencil.  The reverse, from
>>>>>>>>> binary to contour (which actually appears on the image), is done by
>>>>>>>>> vtkMarchingCubes.  This output has extra lines.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> I would love to be able to intercept the binary mask in transit, but
>>>>>>>>> unfortunately, some way that I have vtkImageViewer2 set up isn't
>>>>>>>>> allowing me to see it.  However, you can see the body mask from the
>>>>>>>>> contour image 'body lines.png' I've attached, and then from the second
>>>>>>>>> overlay image 'body with strange lines.png' the extra lines on a
>>>>>>>>> single plane when overlaid with the data.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Have you seen this kind of behavior before in either method?  That
>>>>>>>>> this behavior appeared either when I ran the old extrusion method or
>>>>>>>>> with the new line-based method suggests to me that it's a problem with
>>>>>>>>> the marching squares approach.  Hence my original question.
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>> Mark
>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:10 PM, David Gobbi <david.gobbi at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>> My own experience is that vtkMarchingSquares is the best way to
>>>>>>>>>> contour a 2D image.  It is the only 2D contouring filter I'm aware of
>>>>>>>>>> that correctly orients the contours, i.e. so that you can be sure what
>>>>>>>>>> is "inside" and what is "outside."
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> But vtkMarchingSquares generates open contours whenever the contour
>>>>>>>>>> reaches the bounds of the image... that might be the cause of the
>>>>>>>>>> failures that you are seeing.  Because of this problem, I've written
>>>>>>>>>> my own version of marching squares that always produces closed
>>>>>>>>>> contours, you can find the code here:
>>>>>>>>>> https://github.com/dgobbi/ToolCursor/blob/master/vtkImageToROIContourData.cxx
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>  - David
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>> On Wed, Feb 29, 2012 at 4:43 PM, Mark Roden <mmroden at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>> Hi all,
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> After a length conversation over on the developer list, I've now got a
>>>>>>>>>>> very fast way to convert 2D contours from DICOM rtstructs into binary
>>>>>>>>>>> data.  Now I need to do the reverse.  I already have a method, but
>>>>>>>>>>> this approach is failing for large images-- and by 'failing', I mean
>>>>>>>>>>> producing contours that do not look like the binary data.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I need contours in the xy, xz, and yz planes.  It's also possible to
>>>>>>>>>>> have multiple contours in any given plane.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Right now, I'm using vtkMarchingSquares, but as I said, this is not
>>>>>>>>>>> working for larger contours, and produces spurious results.
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> I note that there's also vtkContourFilter, vtkMarchingContourFilter,
>>>>>>>>>>> vtkSliceCubes, vtkImageMarchingCubes, etc.  Is there any reason to
>>>>>>>>>>> choose one of these over the other?  What would I need for my
>>>>>>>>>>> particular case?
>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>> Thanks,
>>>>>>>>>>> Mark
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