Patent ID: 7545979

Claim:
A method for automatically segmenting image data of an object, the method comprising: selecting a seed; creating an initial surface around the seed; preprocessing the image data by: estimating a region of interest; smoothing an original grayscale image of the object; constructing borders proximate to the object by: constructing a rib cage using a rib cage construction algorithm; and constructing a separation from muscles using a muscle separation algorithm comprising: thresholding the image data at a value that separates bony segments from soft tissue, the image data including at least one transaxial slice, then determining three dimensional connected components having high pixel values and discarding components having a size smaller than a predetermined size; examining pixels of remaining components at each transaxial slice in a slice-by-slice manner, then determining two dimensional connected components having high pixel values and discarding components having a size smaller than a predetermined size; setting a center of a circle on a segment connecting the two seed points if the object is the first organ; setting a radius of the circle equal to a distance between the center of the circle and a nearest bone; repositioning the center of the circle in response to low intensities near the center of the circle; smoothing circle positions; and drawing a portion of the circle; measuring pixel intensity distribution within the region of interest; and modifying a property based on a character of the object; running a deformable surface algorithm on the image data; post processing the image data; wherein selecting a seed comprises: if the object is a first organ, selecting two seed points within the object, one seed point being selected at an upper end of the object and the other seed point being selected at a lower end of the object; if the object is a second organ, selecting a curved segment within the object; and otherwise selecting one seed point within the object; and wherein the above steps are performed by a processing circuit.