Motion estimation in 3d echocardiography using smooth field registration

This paper describes an algorithm for motion and deformation quantification of 3D cardiac ultrasound sequences. The algorithm is based on the assumption that the deformation field is smooth inside the myocardium. Thus, we assume that the displacement field can be represented as the convolution of an unknown field with a Gaussian kernel. We apply our algorithm to datasets with reliable ground truth: a set of synthetic sequences with known trajectories and a set of sequences of a mechanical phantom implanted with microsonometry crystals.