Patent ID: 8126232
Filing Date: 2012-02-28
Classification: G06T,Y10S

Abstract:
1. A computer implemented method for segmenting tubular structures in digital medical images, said method executed by a computer comprising the steps of: extracting a subregion from a 3-dimensional (3D) digital medical image volume containing a vessel of interest; for each voxel in the subregion, identifying potential vessel centerpoints by attaching to each voxel a tip of a 3D cone that is oriented in the direction of the voxel's image gradient and having each voxel within the 3D cone vote for those voxels most likely to belong to a vessel centerline; selecting candidates for a second vote image that are both popular according to a first vote image, as well as being consistently voted upon by a radius image; reconfiguring the subregion as a graph wherein each voxel is represented by a node that is connected to 26 nearest neighbors by n-link edges; and applying a min-cut algorithm to segment the vessel within the subregion.