Patent ID: 7430309

Claim:
A method for extracting a geometric parameter from a cardiac tomography data set, said method comprising the steps of: providing a cardiac tomography data set including a plurality of voxels, each voxel including a respective tri-dimensional position vector and a respective intensity value; providing a region of interest including a plurality of voxels selected from the cardiac tomography data set, the region of interest including at least in part voxels from the cardiac tomography data set representative of a cardiac chamber of interest, the cardiac chamber of interest having a surface of interest; computing an approximative model of the surface of interest on a basis of the region of interest using a non-parametric method, the approximative model of the surface of interest including a plurality of surface coordinates tri-dimensional vectors; computing a plurality of normal vectors, each normal vector being associated with a respective surface coordinate from the approximative model of the surface of interest; computing a plurality of biopsy data sets, each biopsy data set including a plurality of data points, each biopsy data set being representative of a plurality of voxels oriented in a direction defined by a respective normal vector selected from the plurality of normal vectors and including the surface coordinate associated with the respective normal vector; computing an exact model of at least a portion of the surface of interest on a basis of the plurality of biopsy data sets, the exact model of the portion of the surface of interest including a plurality of surface coordinates tri-dimensional vectors, the exact model of the portion of the surface of interest being computed by expanding locally the approximative model of the surface of interest in directions defined by the plurality of normal vectors; and computing the geometric parameter on a basis of at least one surface coordinate from the plurality of surface coordinates included in the exact model of the portion of the surface of interest.