Patent ID: 7603000

Claim:
A method for populating a database with a set of images of an anatomical structure, the database being used to identify a shape of an anatomical structure in an input image, the method comprising the steps of: receiving a set of images of anatomical structures, each image being annotated with a plurality of control points that identify a contour of the anatomical structure, identifying a reference shape for the image set; calculating a warping template for each image in the image set that warps that image into approximately the reference shape; creating a matrix of images by applying each warping template calculated for each image in the image set to all of the images in the image set; computing a shape difference for each image in the matrix by computing a distance measurement between each warped shape and the reference shape; ranking the images based on the distance measurement; identifying a set of features associated with the images; computing feature scores for each image in the matrix; using a ranking boosting process to selecting those combination of features that result in feature scores that produce a rank that is consistent with the rank associated with the warped image; and storing the annotated contours of the anatomical structure, warping templates and the selected feature combination in the database.