Patent ID: 8303503

Claim:
A method, performed by a computer system comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer-executable instructions of a characterization application, for characterizing a vascular object, comprising the steps, facilitated by the computer system executing the computer-executable instructions of the characterization application, of: utilizing an ultrasound device to acquire ultrasound data from a portion of a vascular object; constructing an intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) image of the portion of the vascular object using the ultrasound data; obtaining histology data from a histology performed on the portion of the vascular object; constructing a histology image of the portion of the vascular object using the histology data; identifying at least one landmark common to the IVUS image and the histology image; applying a morphometric algorithm to the first and second images to substantially align the at least one landmark common to the IVUS image and the histology image; and applying a second algorithm to the IVUS image and the histology image to substantially align the non-landmark portions of the IVUS and histology images.