# ViG3D-UNet: Volumetric Vascular Connectivity-Aware Segmentation via 3D Vision Graph Representation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.13599 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.13599/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 26 of its 46 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Apr 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 26 of 26)

- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [U-Net: Convolutional Networks for Biomedical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.04597/) (2015)
- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [Gaussian Error Linear Units (GELUs)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.08415/) (2016)
- [3D U-Net: Learning Dense Volumetric Segmentation from Sparse Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.06650/) (2016)
- [Instance Normalization: The Missing Ingredient for Fast Stylization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.08022/) (2016)
- [UNETR: Transformers for 3D Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.10504/) (2021)
- [Swin UNETR: Swin Transformers for Semantic Segmentation of Brain Tumors in MRI Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01266/) (2022)
- [UNet++: Redesigning Skip Connections to Exploit Multiscale Features in Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05074/) (2019)
- [DeepGCNs: Can GCNs Go as Deep as CNNs?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.03751/) (2019)
- [Deeply-Supervised Nets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.5185/) (2014)
- [Medical Transformer: Gated Axial-Attention for Medical Image Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.10662/) (2021)
- [UCTransNet: Rethinking the Skip Connections in U-Net from a Channel-wise Perspective with Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.04335/) (2021)
- [Vision GNN: An Image is Worth Graph of Nodes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00272/) (2022)
- [STU-Net: Scalable and Transferable Medical Image Segmentation Models Empowered by Large-Scale Supervised Pre-training](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06716/) (2023)
- [Segment Anything Model for Medical Image Segmentation: Current Applications and Future Directions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.03495/) (2024)
- [ImageCAS: A Large-Scale Dataset and Benchmark for Coronary Artery Segmentation based on Computed Tomography Angiography Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.01607/) (2022)
- [CS2-Net: Deep Learning Segmentation of Curvilinear Structures in Medical Imaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.07486/) (2020)
- [Deep Distance Transform for Tubular Structure Segmentation in CT Scans](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.03383/) (2019)
- [Adaptive Context Selection for Polyp Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.04799/) (2023)
- [ExFuse: Enhancing Feature Fusion for Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.03821/) (2018)
- [A joint 3D UNet-Graph Neural Network-based method for Airway Segmentation from chest CTs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.08588/) (2019)
- [Coronary Artery Centerline Extraction in Cardiac CT Angiography Using a CNN-Based Orientation Classifier](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.03143/) (2018)
- [Graph Convolution Based Cross-Network Multi-Scale Feature Fusion for Deep Vessel Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.02393/) (2023)
- [ViGU: Vision GNN U-Net for Fast MRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.10273/) (2023)
- [Improved Topological Preservation in 3D Axon Segmentation and Centerline Detection using Geometric Assessment-driven Topological Smoothing (GATS)](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04116/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Accurate vascular segmentation is essential for coronary visualization and the diagnosis of coronary heart disease. This task involves the extraction of sparse tree-like vascular branches from the volumetric space. However, existing methods have faced significant challenges due to discontinuous vascular segmentation and missing endpoints. To address this issue, a 3D vision graph neural network framework, named ViG3D-UNet, was introduced. This method integrates 3D graph representation and aggregation within a U-shaped architecture to facilitate continuous vascular segmentation. The ViG3D module captures volumetric vascular connectivity and topology, while the convolutional module extracts fine vascular details. These two branches are combined through channel attention to form the encoder feature. Subsequently, a paperclip-shaped offset decoder minimizes redundant computations in the sparse feature space and restores the feature map size to match the original input dimensions. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed approach for continuous vascular segmentation, evaluations were performed on two public datasets, ASOCA and ImageCAS. The segmentation results show that the ViG3D-UNet surpassed competing methods in maintaining vascular segmentation connectivity while achieving high segmentation accuracy. Our code will be available soon.