Talk:Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography

Requested move 14 May 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Consensus to keep the current title. Discussions about edits to the article can continue outside the RM. (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 20:34, 9 July 2024 (UTC)

Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography → Electrical capacitance volume tomography – This page was originally titled "Electrical capacitance volume tomography" and was recently moved to a page called "Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography". These two terms are not the same. The latter is a broader term as shown in the wikipedia article edit on 5/14/24 in the introduction section. References are given for the distinction between terms. When the page was moved to the new term, it stated that the term ECVT is not widely used. However, in the later 5/14/24 edit of the introduction, citations are given for the term being used in China, Indonesia, and three different research groups in the USA. It is suggested that this page return to "Electrical capacitance volume tomography". A separate page should be made for "Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography", if desired, as it is a distinct term that can include stacking of 2D tomographs whereas ECVT does not. Marashdeh (talk) 15:28, 14 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. BilledMammal (talk) 17:05, 23 May 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Polyamorph (talk) 18:15, 31 May 2024 (UTC)

Oppose Contrary to what user Marashdeh says, these two terms mean exactly the same thing in most of modern scientific literature. The term ECVT was artificially created 20 years ago by a group of scientists who prepared patent application, and was just a new name for something previously known. Currently, only a few groups use this term. It is not difficult to find on Google Scholar that this is a definite minority. 3D tomography in all other modalities (such as CT, MRI, etc.) means the same thing as what Marashdeh tries to call "volume tomography". Currently, the vast majority of articles understand three-dimensional capacitive tomography in this obvious way. What Marashdeh tries to call 3D ECT makes no sense at all, because it is nothing more than repeated 2D tomography and no one should calls it 3D in their articles (sometimes the terms 2.5D appear). The fact that the incorrect name ECVT first appeared in a Wikipedia article is not a reason to stick with it forever. Please do not mislead people and do not reverse the recent changes. WolfgangNihil (talk) 14:52, 19 May 2024 (UTC)


 * User @WolfgangNihil states "these two terms mean exactly the same thing". However, the user ignores the references given by the initial prompt which shows the use of the term 3D-ECT to include stacking of 2D tomograms.
 * The user also states that ECVT was artificially created. This is a bias statement. It was clearly introduced in the literature as referenced in the original prompt and article edit to distinguish between the stacking of 2D tomograms and direct 3D reconstruction using 3D sensitivity data.
 * The user mentions that the term 3D-ECT is more widely used than the term ECVT and mentions that a search on google scholar will reveal this. However, when "3D Electrical Capacitance Tomography" is searched on google scholar 574 results are returned, while searching "Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography" on google scholar returns 985 results. Quotes were included in both searches. This also does not separate the results where 3D ECT is used to mean stacking of 2D tomograms or direct reconstruction.
 * The user mentions the use of the term 3D tomography in other modalities such as CT and MRI. However, these methods utilize stacking of cross-sectional images together which further strengthens the need to distinguish between 3D-ECT and ECVT. If following the naming conventions of other tomography modalities, 3D-ECT would mean the combining of 2D-tomograms into a 3D image, indicating the need for a new term to refer to the direct reconstruction of 3D images using 3D sensitivity information (which is why ECVT was introduced as it was a departure from conventional 3D image reconstruction). Furthermore, capacitance imaging is a soft field tomography which allows the ECVT method, whereas it would not make sense in hard field tomography modalities such as CT and MRI. Thus, two arguments the user gives are contradictory. The argument to follow other imaging modality naming conventions is contradictory to the claim that no one should call the stacking of tomograms 3D ECT.
 * Furthermore, this wikipedia page is to discuss the actual publications in the scientific body of literature, not the opinions of individuals about what "should" be happening in the literature. The literature discusses ECVT and it is a well established field that is distinct from 3D-ECT. Marashdeh (talk) 15:10, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose Well, since you are taking up the challenge of a substantive discussion, I will not hesitate to participate in it.
 * Let's determine what the controversial issues are:
 * 1. What is ECVT?
 * 2. What is 3D ECT?
 * The term "Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography" first appears as an article title in 2007 in IEEE Sensors Journal. ( https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/4118165 ). In this article, a distinction is made between ECVT (as a technique in which measurements are made between electrodes located in different rings) and 3D-ECT as a combining of 2D images from several planes. Since then, as you have noticed, there have been 985 articles using this term in this sense. And I agree with that, but you must note that articles on this topic appeared much earlier, before 2007.
 * In 2003 in Chemical Engineering Science (so 4 years earlier) there was an article that presented exactly the same concept, i.e. using measurements taken between different rings of electrodes and using a three-dimensional sensitivity matrix, and called this technique 3D-ECT.
 * ( https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0009250905000965?via%3Dihub ). In this article, composing multiple 2D slices is called "static 3D imaging".
 * While in 2006 in Measurement Science and Technology an article appeared which also calls the 3D reconstruction technique with three-dimensional acquisition 3D-ECT, and the 2D image compositing technique was this time called 2.5D (and to quote exactly: "It is not a real 3D reconstruction as it is only a rough approximation") (https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-0233/17/8/009/meta?casa_token=82d4xcWG7NsAAAAA:h_jr0tOQQKI52ozNxL3qbA7tRZ2_RVppVnotEG884Q39ZcchfuOY8N91NLH9S35rMYK2q_n0BChYC5W0BCMdf13gCqqZ1Q)
 * So when the first article about ECVT appeared in 2007, it was nothing new. It was the same technique that had been known for several years, called 3D-ECT. And imposing a new meaning for 3D-ECT as combining 2D images was also artificial because there were already established names for it at that time.
 * For the last 20 years, both terms have been used in parallel to describe inter-electrode measurements in various rings. And while scientific groups in groups using the term ECVT tend to call the distinction of this term and call the composition of 2D images 3D-ECT, equally numerous scientific groups using the concept of 3D-ECT, as a rule, did not deny the existence of the term ECVT, understanding its meaning as a synonym of 3D-ECT.
 * Examples of other early articles using term 3D-ECT in the sense described in this Wiki article (both from 2004):
 * https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1284635
 * https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/1325371
 * Another topic you tried to discredit is the reference to other modalities. While I can agree with you that CT and MRI may not have much in common with ECT, you must admit that this technique is almost identical to electrical imedance tomography (EIT).
 * There are 5 times more articles about EIT (which has found medical applications more easily) than about ECT. However, both techniques are based on similar assumptions and the method of data acquisition and reconstruction is very similar.
 * Despite these similarities, the term "electrical impedance volume tomography" does not exist and has never existed. What it would represent by analogy has always been called 3D-EIT. The same is true in the third technique of electrical tomography, i.e. electrical resistive tomography (ERT), there is no term "volume resistive tomography", such tomography is only called "three-dimensional resistive tomography".
 * Therefore, using this concept in only one of existing methods of electrical tomography is strange and misleading.
 * Due to the significant use of the term ECVT in scientific publications, we should leave this term on Wikipedia, but if we are serious, we cannot say that it is something other than 3D-ECT and artificially attribute to 3D-ECT tomography the meaning of "combining many 2D images", because this is just the opinion of only part of the electrical tomography community.
 * Moreover, the title of the article should remain "three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography (3D-ECT)", because this term in the sense described in the article appeared first (4 years earlier than ECVT). Moreover, the term 3D-ECT is understandable to a wider audience, including those involved in impedance and resistive tomography.
 * WolfgangNihil (talk) 23:36, 20 May 2024 (UTC)
 * Definition of 3D-ECT and ECVT:
 * Your history is correct. The term 3D-ECT was used to first refer to the methodology of direct image reconstruction from 3D sensitivity in 2003 and later in 2006. ECVT was first introduced in 2007 in a journal (2005 in a US patent) for the specific purpose of delineating the difference between stacking of 2D-tomograms and direct reconstruction.
 * So, while I agree that 3D-ECT has been used to refer to direct volumetric image reconstruction using 3D sensitivity, it has also been used to refer to stacking of 2D tomograms. I am also not denying that the stacking of 2D tomograms has other names. However, ECVT is not used to refer to stacking of 2D tomograms and thus has a narrower meaning, although it could be said that it is a type of 3D-ECT based on the usage of the two terms in literature. This makes ECVT a more precise title. Therefore, the two terms are not synonymous, and it is meaningful to have a wiki page titled “Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography”.
 * History of ECT terminology:
 * The concept of capacitance imaging was first introduced in 1988 in a US patent ( https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6415295 ) and a report by the US Department of Energy ( https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6806941 ). In both of these publications, it was called “Capacitance Imaging System (CIS)”. In fact, it was called 3D CIS which would be the earliest term, much earlier than 3D-ECT.
 * In 1989, the first journal publication on the topic was published by UMIST ( https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0022-3735/22/3/009/meta ). This paper used the term “tomographic flow imaging system based on capacitance sensors”. The term ECT did not appear until 1992 in another paper by UMIST.
 * A search on google scholar finds only 95 results for “capacitance imaging system”, but 13,800 results for “electrical capacitance tomography”. I don’t think you and I dispute that the correct terminology today is ECT, not CIS, despite the original term being CIS.
 * You should be able to see how this translates to the current adoption of ECVT over 3D-ECT for the use of 3D sensitivity for direct reconstruction of volumetric images. As shown in the previous post by yourself, google scholar supports this adoption claim. Thus, ECVT is a more recognizable and appropriate title reflecting the body of scientific literature.
 * Comparison to other imaging modalities:
 * While it is useful to understand different imaging modalities and how they compare to each other, each modality is developed by different experts who create advancements related to that specific technology/field. For example, MRI is not even called tomography, but the Wikipedia page does not call it “Magnetic Resonance Tomography” to force cohesiveness across the scientific literature.
 * Additionally, extensions of MRI are given different names such as NMRI, dMRI, fMRI, 3D MRI, and 3D aMRI. The terms are developed by the inventors to distinguish the advancements from the rest of the field. Sometimes the term is not coined when it is first introduced as in the case of both ECT and ECVT but is coined and adopted later.
 * Similarly, ECT has its own advancements such as 3D-ECT, ECVT, AECVT, DCPT, MFECT etc.
 * The fact that EIT does not use the term EIVT should be irrelevant to this article because ECT is its own imaging modality and the literature reflects the broader adoption of the term ECVT for the direct 3D reconstruction. This article does not investigate the history and evolution of terminology in EIT.
 * For these reasons, the title of this article should be “Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography”. Marashdeh (talk) 11:50, 22 May 2024 (UTC)


 * Oppose (a fresh perspective from an uninvolved editor) I find Marashdeh's logic a bit hard to follow. How are Google Scholar searches comparing CIS/ECT relevant? And I do not see how this translates to the current adoption of ECVT over 3D-ECT, since the statements before that didn't have anything to do with the ECVT/3D-ECT debate. Anyhow, on the quest to find a WP:COMMONNAME, I did some Google Scholar searching of my own. The variation with the most hits on the 3D-ECT side was "3D ECT", with 117,000 results . On the other hand, "Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography" produced 43,600 results  (the abbreviation has 3,560). I think this shows the prevalence of 3D-ECT, so I oppose the move. (Ngrams was not helpful and only showed hits for ECVT, which I could not verify were on this subject example search.)  Toadspike   [Talk]  03:53, 9 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Update: I've struck some of my !vote due to the corrections of the Google Scholar search provided by Marashdeh on my Talk page. tldr; the search I used probably included a bunch of irrelevant stuff, especially on the 3D ECT side. I'm now neutral on the move, but I really hope that a clarification of the different definitions of both 3D ECT and ECVT can be included in the article. I would like to remind the closer that a no-consensus (status quo) close should revert to ECVT, as the nominator was unable to revert a BOLD round-robin move for a normal BRD. Also, the comment below from Constant314 was made before I updated this !vote. Toadspike   [Talk]  21:23, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Relisting comment: discussion re-opened to allow broader consensus to develop. Note this is a proposal to undo a previously undiscussed move, hence a need for wider participation. Polyamorph (talk) 15:35, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose per Toadspike's comments. Constant314 (talk) 16:10, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * For Continuing from our discussion on @Toadspike's talk page, and reiterating from earlier in the conversation, a proper google scholar search shows that ECVT is the more common term. "Three-dimensional electrical capacitance tomography" (199 results) and "Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography" (1030 results) must be searched as full terms with quotes. Otherwise, 3D ECT can return many more results that include things such as electroconvulsive therapy and artificially inflate the numbers. There are 111,000 results for 3D ECT without quotes.
 * I would propose to the group that the pages original title "Electrical Capacitance Volume Tomography" be restored due to its higher use in literature and a statement be made at the top that some use 3D-ECT as a synonymous term and some distinguish it as a separate term as supported by . This is a very good 2010 ECT review paper that states "Most researchers use a conventional single-plane ECT sensor to generate 3D images by stacking 2D images together using time as the third dimension (Wang et al 2003). It is arguable whether or not those images should be called 3D or [2.5 D]." Marashdeh (talk) 16:27, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: WikiProject Technology, WikiProject Electrical engineering, WikiProject Physics, and WikiProject Medicine have been notified of this discussion. Polyamorph (talk) 15:38, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I think the most useful outcome of this discussion would be getting some of that information into the article(s). One known use of Wikipedia articles is to figure out what a given term means, so we could help people by giving them some information about how the names have changed.
 * Also, if there are two different things that have used the same name, then a WP:SETINDEX at that name might be useful and appropriate. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:14, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I strongly agree with this. I think @WolfgangNihil and @Marashdeh should create a section in this article that explains the two definitions of 3D ECT and ECVT – it seems that they at least agree that the both terms can each mean two different things. Toadspike   [Talk]  21:13, 29 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I agree with adding an expanded terminology section, and I would support in editing this new section. Marashdeh (talk) 11:49, 1 July 2024 (UTC)
 * @Marashdeh and @WolfgangNihil, the first step's the hardest. I think it should be the first section in the article, don't you?  There's no point in someone reading the whole thing, only to find out at the end of the article that they wanted the other one.
 * Would you rather have a section name like ==3D ECT versus ECVT== or more generic, like ==Name==? WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:40, 8 July 2024 (UTC)
 * I think ==ECVT versus 3D ECT== is good because it points out the heart of the debate very clearly. I put ECVT first because I think the original discussion on the title page has now leaned in favor of reverting back to ECVT since the original argument for 3D ECT was based on incorrect interpretation of google scholar results. Marashdeh (talk) 11:57, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Of course I agree with your suggestions. A section that focused on differences in naming would definitely be useful and should be somewhere at the beginning of the article. I think a better name would be simply ==ECVT== or == Differences in naming the concept ==. If @Marashdeh agrees to stick with the name 3D ECT for this article then I think it would be a good compromise for us to have him decide on the shape of this new section. WolfgangNihil (talk) 12:04, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.