iRBSM: A Deep Implicit 3D Breast Shape Model

We present the first deep implicit 3D shape model of the female breast, building upon and improving the recently proposed Regensburg Breast Shape Model (RBSM). Compared to its PCA-based predecessor, our model employs implicit neural representations; hence, it can be trained on raw 3D breast scans and eliminates the need for computationally demanding non-rigid registration -- a task that is particularly difficult for feature-less breast shapes. The resulting model, dubbed iRBSM, captures detailed surface geometry including fine structures such as nipples and belly buttons, is highly expressive, and outperforms the RBSM on different surface reconstruction tasks. Finally, leveraging the iRBSM, we present a prototype application to 3D reconstruct breast shapes from just a single image. Model and code publicly available at https://rbsm.re-mic.de/implicit.

Learning the shape of female breasts: an open-access 3D statistical shape model of the female breast built from 110 breast scans

We present the Regensburg Breast Shape Model (RBSM) - a 3D statistical shape model of the female breast built from 110 breast scans, and the first ever publicly available. Together with the model, a fully automated, pairwise surface registration pipeline used to establish correspondence among 3D breast scans is introduced. Our method is computationally efficient and requires only four landmarks to guide the registration process. In order to weaken the strong coupling between breast and thorax, we propose to minimize the variance outside the breast region as much as possible. To achieve this goal, a novel concept called breast probability masks (BPMs) is introduced. A BPM assigns probabilities to each point of a 3D breast scan, telling how likely it is that a particular point belongs to the breast area. During registration, we use BPMs to align the template to the target as accurately as possible inside the breast region and only roughly outside. This simple yet effective strategy significantly reduces the unwanted variance outside the breast region, leading to better statistical shape models in which breast shapes are quite well decoupled from the thorax. The RBSM is thus able to produce a variety of different breast shapes as independently as possible from the shape of the thorax. Our systematic experimental evaluation reveals a generalization ability of 0.17 mm and a specificity of 2.8 mm for the RBSM. Ultimately, our model is seen as a first step towards combining physically motivated deformable models of the breast and statistical approaches in order to enable more realistic surgical outcome simulation.