Patent ID: 8472685

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: (a) a computer; and (b) a computer program product tangibly embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising instructions for causing the computer to: receive image data (ψ) associated with an object and determine a geometric characteristic (φ) of the object from the image data according to ∂ ϕ ∂ t = v → ⁡ ( ψ ) ⁢  ∇ ϕ  + r ⁡ ( ϕ , ψ ) ⁢  ∇ ϕ  where {right arrow over (ν)}(ψ) is the force field that pushes the zero level set of φ towards regions of interest (specified by the zero level set of ψ), and where the function r(φ, ψ) controls the regularity of the zero level set of (φ).