Patent ID: 7715605

Claim:
A method, comprising: automatically displaying curvature of a spine as a line in an image of the spine; wherein automatically displaying the curvature of the spine comprises: improving contrast of the image of the spine by generating a mask of the spine and improving the contrast of vertebrae of the spine, wherein generating a mask of the spine comprises finding a region of interest, wherein finding a region of interest comprises: dividing the image into a plurality of slices, wherein a width of each slice is equal to a width of the image; and a height of each slice is a predetermined number of times smaller than a height of the image; for each slice, equalizing a histogram to spread the intensity distribution and applying a threshold of a predetermined percentage of a maximum intensity to raise the contrast; shifting each of the slices by one tenth of the height of the slice; repeating the steps of dividing, equalizing and shifting a predetermined number of times, obtaining a set of results; and calculating a mean of the set of results.