3D saddle point detection and applications in cardiac imaging

We investigate saddle points in 3D cardiac images. We do so by improving a critical point detection algorithm, the 3D winding number, or Poincaré index. We consider two different applications. We estimate cardiac motion from 3D tagged MRI data, based on tracking of saddle points. We also employ our method for saddle point extraction in blood flow data, acquired by phase contrast MRI.