Patent ID: 8131075

Claim:
A method for segmenting an image of a heart comprising: receiving the image data comprising a plurality of voxels, the image data including first seeds points belonging to the heart and second seeds points belonging a background region; downsampling the plurality of voxels of the image data to determine a downsampled set of voxels; constructing a graph having a plurality of nodes corresponding to the downsampled set of voxels; determining first voxels of the downsampled set of voxels along an outer boundary of the heart and determining, second voxels of the downsampled set of voxels along an inner boundary of the heart; projecting the first voxels and the second voxels to the image data; scaling down the first set of seeds and the second set of seeds; establishing a refined outer boundary of the region of interest by growing the first set of seeds inwardly to define a first area while simultaneously growing the second seeds outwardly to define a second area until the first areas and the second areas meet, to thereby establish and display the refined outer boundary of the heart.