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Although the human visual system is very good at the interpretation of images, the amount of digitally acquired and stored data is so large that we need computerized analysis and retrieval methods to handle it. Many applications exist in industry, company archives, internet, and hospital environments. Two examples are verification of misuse of a company logo among one of the millions of images on the Web, and examination and retrieval of the millions of digital medical scans made every year. Characteristic to our research is that fundamental research is followed by experimental verification. The approach we take is strongly algorithmic, and we put emphasis on the analysis of shape of patterns that are present in images, sound, video, and 3D scenes.

The topics we work on are feature extraction, segmentation, matching of images, and organization of images in index structures for efficient retrieval, with a focus on medical imaging and shape-based multimedia. Our research in medical imaging is concerned with alignment of 3D scans (CT, MRI, etc.). Our research in multimedia is concerned with the algorithmic aspects of shape analysis. Some aspects involved are the representation, decomposition, approximation, and deformation of shape, the transformation of one shape into another, the measuring how similar two shapes are, and the organization of shapes in (index) search structures.