Statistics and Analysis of Shapes

Pattern analysis and recognition pervade many aspects of our daily lives, including user authentication in banking, object retrieval from databases in the consumer sector, and the omnipresent surveillance and security measures around sensitive areas. Shape analysis---a fundamental building block in many approaches to these applications---is also used in statistics, biomedical applications (Magnetic Resonnance Imaging), and many other related disciplines. With contributions from some of the leading experts and pioneers in the field, this self-contained, unified volume is the first comprehensive treatment of theory, methods, algorithms, and programs available in a single resource. The book gives an overview of planar and three-dimensional shape analysis and reviews developments from a rapidly increasing number of research papers in diverse fields, including the mathematical and physical sciences, engineering, and medicine."Statistics and Analysis of Shapes" will be an essential learning kit for statistical researchers, engineers, scientists, medical researchers, and students seeking a rapid introduction to the field. The book may be used as a textbook for a graduate-level special topics course in statistics and signal/image analysis, or for an intensive short course on shape analysis and modeling. Experienced researchers and practitioners in academia and industry needing a single and concise source of state-of-the-art techniques will also find this a useful book.