https://doi.org/10.1140/epjst/e2016-02671-2
Regular Article
Methods of Information Geometry to model complex shapes
University “G. d'Annunzio”, Chieti-Pescara, Italy
Received: 28 March 2016
Revised: 26 July 2016
Published online: 30 September 2016
In this paper, a new statistical method to model patterns emerging in complex systems is proposed. A framework for shape analysis of 2− dimensional landmark data is introduced, in which each landmark is represented by a bivariate Gaussian distribution. From Information Geometry we know that Fisher-Rao metric endows the statistical manifold of parameters of a family of probability distributions with a Riemannian metric. Thus this approach allows to reconstruct the intermediate steps in the evolution between observed shapes by computing the geodesic, with respect to the Fisher-Rao metric, between the corresponding distributions. Furthermore, the geodesic path can be used for shape predictions. As application, we study the evolution of the rat skull shape. A future application in Ophthalmology is introduced.
© EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag, 2016
