Patent ID: 7873192

Claim:
A method of enhancing an image scan of an animal, the image scan including a plurality of arrays of image elements, the method comprising: selecting a slice of image elements from the image scan; dividing image elements of the slice into a first category representing soft tissue and a second category representing hard tissue based on a density of each of the image elements; determining whether an image element in the first category is eligible for smoothing based on a position of the image element in a vertical array of first category image elements, the vertical array of first category of image elements positioned perpendicular to the slice; smoothing eligible image elements in the first category by replacing an original individual value of an image element with a new individual value determined from a plurality of neighboring image elements of the vertical array when some of the plurality of neighboring image elements are in the same category as the original image element being replaced; retaining image elements in the second category unsmoothed; creating a border of unsmoothed image elements of the first category at an edge of the second category by selectively retaining image elements of the first category that are located near the edge of the second category unsmoothed; and creating a copy of the array of image elements, where smoothed values replace each individual value of image elements of the first category in the copy of the array of image elements.