Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping

Large deformation diffeomorphic metric mapping (LDDMM) is a specific suite of algorithms used for diffeomorphic mapping and manipulating dense imagery based on diffeomorphic metric mapping within the academic discipline of computational anatomy, to be distinguished from its precursor based on diffeomorphic mapping. The distinction between the two is that diffeomorphic metric maps satisfy the property that the length associated to their flow away from the identity induces a metric on the group of diffeomorphisms, which in turn induces a metric on the orbit of shapes and forms within the field of Computational Anatomy. The study of shapes and forms with the metric of diffeomorphic metric mapping is called diffeomorphometry. A diffeomorphic mapping system is a system designed to map, manipulate, and transfer information which is stored in many types of spatially distributed medical imagery. Diffeomorphic mapping is the underlying technology for mapping and analyzing information measured in human anatomical coordinate systems which have been measured via Medical imaging. Diffeomorphic mapping is a broad term that actually refers to a number of different algorithms, processes, and methods. It is attached to many operations and has many applications for analysis and visualization. Diffeomorphic mapping can be used to relate various sources of information which are indexed as a function of spatial position as the key index variable. Diffeomorphisms are by their Latin root structure preserving transformations, which are in turn differentiable and therefore smooth, allowing for the calculation of metric based quantities such as arc length and surface areas. Spatial location and extents in human anatomical coordinate systems can be recorded via a variety of Medical imaging modalities, generally termed multi-modal medical imagery, providing either scalar and or vector quantities at each spatial location.