Patent ID: 9142029
Filing Date: 2015-09-22
Classification: G06T

Abstract:
1. A region extraction apparatus comprising: a three-dimensional medical image obtainment unit that obtains a three-dimensional medical image of a chest; a bronchial structure extraction unit that extracts a bronchial structure representing a structure of a bronchus or bronchi from the three-dimensional medical image obtained by the three-dimensional medical image obtainment unit; a divided lung region obtainment unit that divides, based on the divergence of the bronchial structure extracted by the bronchial structure extraction unit, the bronchial structure into a plurality of divided bronchial structures, and obtains a plurality of divided lung regions based on the plurality of divided bronchial structures; a distance image generation unit that generates, based on the plurality of divided lung regions, a distance image based on a distance between each voxel in an entire region excluding at least one of the plurality of divided lung regions and each of the plurality of divided lung regions; and a border non-existing region extraction unit that extracts, based on the distance image generated by the distance image generation unit, a border non-existing region, which does not include any borders of the plurality of divided lung regions.