The second component of the technique relies on a distance measure in a 3-D image space which measures the distance between a given point in space to the nearest point on the object being morphed. Sean Mauch developed a mathematical solution which essentially propagates a distance measurement solution given around the boundary of the image object out into space. For instance, given a 3-D image of a face and the solution of the distance measure around the skin and hair, Sean Mauch's solution propagates these values outwards, i.e. away from the face. Therefore, the major implementation goal of my research would be to efficiently compute this distance measure at the boundary of the image object. The brute force technique used currently involves computing the distance measure at each point in space by slowly growing an imaginary sphere around that point until it hits the image object, and taking the radius of that sphere to be the distance measure. Unfortunately, this technique is too slow to be acceptable given the size and complexity of the typical MRI image data.

Finally, the above results would be input to the general morphing code. In conclusion, I would like to complete an animation of this completed process by the October 1998 deadline for a journal publication.