morphometrics Morphometrics (from Greek μορϕή ''morphe'', "shape, form", and -μετρία ''metria'', "measurement") or morphometry refers to the quantitative analysis of ''form'', a concept that encompasses size and shape. Morphometric analyses are co ...

, landmark point or shortly landmark is a point in a

shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material type. A pl ...

object in which correspondences between and within the populations of the object are preserved. In other disciplines, landmarks may be known as vertices,

anchor An anchor is a device, normally made of metal , used to secure a vessel to the bed of a body of water to prevent the craft from drifting due to wind or current. The word derives from Latin ''ancora'', which itself comes from the Greek ἄγ ...

points, control points, sites, profile points, 'sampling' points, nodes, markers, fiducial markers, etc. Landmarks can be defined either manually by experts or automatically by a

computer program A computer program is a sequence or set of instructions in a programming language for a computer to execute. Computer programs are one component of software, which also includes documentation and other intangible components. A computer program ...

. There are three basic types of landmarks: anatomical landmarks, mathematical landmarks or pseudo-landmarks. An

anatomical landmark Anatomical terminology is a form of scientific terminology used by anatomists, zoologists, and health professionals such as doctors. Anatomical terminology uses many unique terms, suffixes, and prefixes deriving from Ancient Greek and Latin. ...

is a

biologically Biology is the scientific study of life. It is a natural science with a broad scope but has several unifying themes that tie it together as a single, coherent field. For instance, all organisms are made up of cells that process hereditary i ...

-meaningful point in an

organism In biology, an organism () is any living system that functions as an individual entity. All organisms are composed of cells (cell theory). Organisms are classified by taxonomy into groups such as multicellular animals, plants, and ...

. Usually experts define anatomical points to ensure their correspondences within the same

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

. Examples of anatomical landmark in shape of a

skull The skull is a bone protective cavity for the brain. The skull is composed of four types of bone i.e., cranial bones, facial bones, ear ossicles and hyoid bone. However two parts are more prominent: the cranium and the mandible. In humans, the ...

are the eye corner, tip of the nose, jaw, etc. Anatomical landmarks determine homologous parts of an organism, which share a common ancestry. Mathematical landmarks are points in a shape that are located according to some mathematical or geometrical property, for instance, a high

curvature In mathematics, curvature is any of several strongly related concepts in geometry. Intuitively, the curvature is the amount by which a curve deviates from being a straight line, or a surface deviates from being a plane. For curves, the canonic ...

point or an

extreme point In mathematics, an extreme point of a convex set S in a real or complex vector space is a point in S which does not lie in any open line segment joining two points of S. In linear programming problems, an extreme point is also called vertex or ...

. A computer program usually determines mathematical landmarks used for an automatic

pattern recognition Pattern recognition is the automated recognition of patterns and regularities in data. It has applications in statistical data analysis, signal processing, image analysis, information retrieval, bioinformatics, data compression, computer graphi ...

. Pseudo-landmarks are constructed points located between anatomical or mathematical landmarks. A typical example is an equally spaced set of points between two anatomical landmarks to get more sample points from a shape. Pseudo-landmarks are useful during shape matching, when the matching process requires a large number of points.

References

* {{cite book, author=I.L. Dryden and K.V. Mardia, title=Statistical Shape Analysis, publisher=John Wiley & Sons, date=1988, isbn=0-471-95816-6 Computer vision

See also

References