Patent ID: 6983063

Claim:
A computer-assisted diagnosis method for assisting diagnosis of three-dimensional digital medical image data, comprising the steps of: receiving indicia identifying at least one region of interest in a digital medical image; and identifying three-dimensional anatomical objects within the at least one region of interest; for a given three-dimensional anatomical object within the at least one region performing the following computer-implemented steps: determining an extent, a centroid, and a local spinning axis of the given anatomical object by examining connected voxels within a predefined volume on adjacent tomographic slices; determining a local spinning plane for the given anatomical object, the local spinning plane being centered at the centroid and the local spinning axis; rotating the local spinning plane at least a portion of 360 degrees, wherein said rotating step comprises the step of: automatically creating a view of the given anatomical object at computer selected increments of rotation, so as to result in a plurality of views of the given anatomical object at predefined angles in the rotation that are displayed in sequence as a cine loop.