Patent ID: 7986823

Claim:
A method of finding consistent mid-sagittal planes (MSPs) in different image head scans of a same patient, said method comprising the steps of: providing a pair of images acquired from different head scans of a same patient, each said image comprising a plurality of intensities associated with a 3-dimensional (3D) grid of points; for each image, selecting a 2-dimensional (2D) transverse localizer image from a middle slice along a transverse view of the 3D image; fitting an ellipse to said transverse localizer image to locate a head position (x, y) in said transverse localizer image, wherein said y-coordinate, a position along a vertical axis, is indicative of a position of a 2D coronal localizer image in the 3D image; fitting an ellipse to said coronal localizer image to locate a head position (x, y) in said coronal localizer image, wherein said x-coordinate, a position along a horizontal axis, is indicative of a position of said 2D coronal localizer image in the 3D image; calculating a middle line in said transverse localizer image and a middle line in said coronal localizer image; calculating a mid-sagittal plane (MSP) from the middle lines of said transverse localizer image and said coronal localizer image; and determining a new set of slope and intercept parameters within a proximity of one MSP that maximizes a similarity measure between the one MSP and the other MSP.