Patent ID: 8644575

Claim:
A computer-automated image processing method, comprising: accessing a 4D image data set comprising a plurality of 3D image data sets of a volume taken in time sequence, wherein the volume includes at least part of the abdomen of a living subject; selecting one of the 3D image data sets to serve as a reference volume 3D image data set; partitioning the reference volume 3D image data set into an abdominal cavity domain inside the abdominal wall and an abdominal wall domain including the abdominal wall and externally adjacent anatomical features; registering each of the 3D image data sets to the abdominal cavity domain of the reference volume 3D image data set to obtain a first warp field defined over the abdominal cavity domain without including a portion of the reference volume 3D image data set within the abdominal wall domain; registering each of the 3D image data sets to the abdominal wall domain of the reference volume 3D image data set to obtain a second warp field defined over the abdominal wall domain without including a portion of the reference volume 3D image data set within the abdominal cavity domain; for each of the 3D image data sets, merging the first and second warp fields into a single consistent merged warp field defined over the whole volume; and using each of the merged warp fields to bring the corresponding 3D image data set into registration with the reference volume 3D image data set.