Patent ID: 8160677

Claim:
A method of determining an anatomical landmark in an anatomy of a patient, comprising: obtaining image data of a brain of the patient, including at least one of obtaining a T1 weighted magnetic resonance image data, a T2 weighted magnetic resonance image data, X-ray image data, computed tomography image data, and Positron emission tomography image data; pre-processing image data of the brain with a processor system configured to at least smooth the image data; determining a seed portion in at least one of the obtained image data or the smoothed image data; after pre-processing the image data, segmenting the image data based upon a region growing from the seed portion to identify a third ventricle of the brain as at least a portion of a selected region in the image data; identifying the anatomical landmark as at least one of an anterior commissure and a posterior commissure after segmenting the third ventricle and based on the segmented third ventricle in the image data as a bright portion that includes an intensity change at an edge of the segmented third ventricle, wherein at least one of the anterior commissure and the posterior commissure is identified in the selected region; and after identifying the anatomical landmark, determining a location of an anatomical target based on the identified anatomical landmark, wherein the anatomical target is substantially indistinguishable from surrounding structures in the image data of the brain.