Biomedical texture analysis: fundamentals, tools and challenges

Describing the fundamentals and applications of biomedical texture analysis (BTA) for precision medicine, this work defines what biomedical textures (BTs) are and why they require specific image analysis design approaches when compared to more classical computer vision applications.

The fundamental properties of BTs are given to highlight key aspects of texture operator design, providing a foundation for biomedical engineers to build the next generation of biomedical texture operators.

Examples of novel texture operators are described and their ability to characterise BTs are demonstrated in a variety of applications in radiology and digital histopathology.

Recent open-source software frameworks which enable the extraction, exploration and analysis of 2D and 3D texture-based imaging biomarkers are also presented.