Patent ID: 8180133
Filing Date: 2012-05-15
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. An image processing method comprising: identifying a body region of a subject in a tomographic image based on pixel values of pixels constituting the tomographic image; extracting a bone muscle region corresponding to essential parts of bones and muscles based on bone muscle pixels having pixel values corresponding to one of the bones and the muscles in the body region; searching boundary points of the bone muscle region from outside a region surrounding the extracted bone muscle region to inside the region; creating a bone-muscle region outer peripheral profile line by joining only boundary points at which each index related to at least one of a length and a slope of a line segment connecting between adjoining boundary points of the searched boundary points satisfies a predetermined condition; and extracting a visceral fat region that includes fat pixels having pixel values corresponding to fat in a region lying inside the bone-muscle region outer peripheral profile line.