Patent ID: 8644608

Claim:
An image segmentation method for recovering a contour of a bone from an input image of the bone, the method comprising: receiving the input image at a processing device; in the processing device, independently applying at least three distinct image processing functions to the input image, to obtain at least three resulting images indicative of respective distinct features of the input image, at least one of the at least three image processing functions pertaining to a spatial domain, and at least another one of the at least three image processing functions pertaining to a frequency domain; in the processing device, combining the at least three resulting images together by distributing pixels according to their k-class based on corresponding pixel characteristics in each one of the at least three resulting images to form a single compounded image representative of all of the respective distinct features differences, the compounded image identifying at least two regions based on the respective distinct features, one of the at least two regions corresponding to the bone; in the processing device, identifying the contour of the bone based on the at least two regions of the compounded image; and outputting an output image for display, the output image being based on the compounded image and comprising the contour.