Call for papers

SASHIMI: Simulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging

A MICCAI 2025 Workshop

Jointly organized with the SynthRAD2025 Challenge (https://synthrad2025.grand-challenge.org/)

In conjunction with MICCAI 2025 (https://conferences.miccai.org/2025/en/)

Previous SASHIMI proceedings are available on SpringerLink

Important Dates:

Paper submissions due: June 25, 2025
Notification of paper decisions: July 16, 2025

Camera-ready papers due: July 30, 2025

All times are 23:59 Pacific Time.

Workshop event: TBD (September 23 or September 27, 2025)

Scope of the Workshop:

The Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention (MICCAI) community needs data with known ground truth to develop, evaluate, and validate computerized image analytic tools, as well as to facilitate clinical training. Synthetic data are ideally suited for this purpose. Another motivation to generate synthetic data is to improve the generalizability of deep learning and machine learning algorithms that are affected by domain shift issues.

To generate synthetic data, a full range of models underpinning image simulation and synthesis, also referred to as image translation, cross-modality synthesis, image completion, domain adaptation, etc. have been developed over the years: (i) deep learning methods including fully-supervised, semi-supervised, self-supervised, unsupervised, transfer, and multi-task learning; (ii) deep learning model architectures including Generative Adversarial Network (GAN), Variational Auto-Encoder (VAE), Flows, Transformers, and etc; (iii) machine learning methods using hand-crafted features; (iv) detailed mechanistic models (top–down), which incorporate priors on the geometry and physics of image acquisition and formation processes; (v) complex spatio-temporal computational models of anatomical variability, organ physiology, and morphological changes in tissues or disease progression; (vi) applications of synthetic images including improving image quality, segmentation, tracking, detection, registration, and etc.

The goal of the Simulation and Synthesis in Medical Imaging (SASHIMI) workshop is to bring together all those interested in such problems in order to engage in invigorating research, discuss current approaches, and stimulate new ideas and scientific directions in this field. The objectives are to (a) bring together experts on image synthesis to raise the state of the art; (b) hear from invited speakers outside of the MICCAI community, for example in the areas of transfer learning, generative adversarial networks, or variational autoencoders, to cross-fertilize these fields; and (c) identify challenges and opportunities for further research. We also want to identify the suitable approaches to evaluate the plausibility of synthetic data and to collect benchmark data that could help with the development of future algorithms.

Topics:

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Fundamental methods for image-based biophysical modeling and image synthesis
• Biophysical and data-driven models of disease progression, organ development, motion and deformation, image formation and acquisition
• Virtual cell imaging
• Segmentation/registration across or within modalities to aid the learning of model parameters
• Imaging protocol harmonization approaches across imaging systems, sites and time points
• Image synthesis for normalization and spatio-temporal intensity correction
• Cross modality (PET/MR, PET/CT, CT/MR, etc.) image synthesis
• Simulation and synthesis from large-scale databases
• Machine and deep learning techniques in image simulation and synthesis
• Handling uncertainty and incomplete data via simulation and synthesis techniques
• Automated techniques for quality assessment of simulations and synthetic images
• Image synthesis in high dimensional spaces (vectors, tensors, spatio-temporal features, etc.)
• Handling uncertainty and incomplete data via simulation and synthesis techniques
• Evaluation and benchmarking of state of-the-art approaches in simulation and synthesis
• Normative and annotated datasets for benchmarking and learning models
• Novel ideas on evaluation metrics and methods in image-based simulation and image synthesis
• Applications of image synthesis in super resolution imaging and multi/cross-scale regression
• Applications of image synthesis and simulation in medical image registration and segmentation
• Applications of image synthesis/simulation in super resolution imaging and multi/cross-scale regression, registration, segmentation, denoising, fusion reconstruction and real-time simulation of biophysical properties
• Applications of synthesis and simulation to image reconstruction from sparse data or sparse views

Submission types:

This year, all papers submitted to SASHIMI will be split into two categories: papers introducing new methods and application-oriented papers. During the submission process, the authors will be asked to choose one of the following options:

• Method-oriented paper: The main emphasis during the review process will be put on the novelty, correctness of the presented method, and proper validation of the results. The authors are expected to submit a full-length paper which will be (upon acceptance) included in the conference proceedings.

• Application-oriented paper: The main focus will be put on the novel application of an existing theoretical image synthesis method and the data which the given method is applied to. The data should be described in detail. For new data collected, the collection process should be described (experimental setup, device(s) used, image acquisition parameters, subjects/objects involved, instructions to annotators, methods for quality control). For existing datasets, citations, as well as descriptions if they are not publicly available, should be specified. If public, a link to a downloadable version of the dataset should be included. The authors are expected to submit a full-length paper which will be (upon acceptance) included in the conference proceedings.

Further Information and Submission Guidelines:

The SASHIMI 2025 workshop will accept 10-page method- and application-oriented papers (10 pages, including references, and up to 2 pages of appendices). Accepted papers will be published in a Lecture Notes in Computer Science volume published by Springer. Check the Submission page for more details.