Patent ID: 8150498

Claim:
A system to determine an anatomical landmark in an anatomy, comprising: a processor; a first memory system to store instructions to be executed by the processor; a second memory system to store an storing image data of the anatomy; a display operable to display the determined anatomical landmark in the image data in the anatomy; and a user input to select a seed datum in the image data; wherein the processor is configured to access the first memory system and execute instructions stored in the first memory system to automatically determine the anatomical landmark in the anatomy based upon the selected seed datum in the image data stored in the second memory system, wherein the instructions include: instructions to automatically segment at least a third ventricle in the image data based on the selected seed datum; and subsequent to segmenting the third ventricle, determine at least one of an anterior commissure or a posterior commissure based on the location of the determined third ventricle in the image data; subsequent to executing the instructions to segment at least the third ventricle, instructions to automatically determine a location of an anterior commissure in the image data relative to an anterior portion of the segmented third ventricle by at least identifying a bright point in the image data at an anterior boundary of the segmented third ventricle, where the bright point includes an intensity change at the edge of the third ventricle and the edge is also the edge of the anterior commissure, subsequent to executing the instructions to segment at least the third ventricle, instructions to automatically determine a location of a posterior commissure in the image data at a posterior portion of the segmented third ventricle at least by identifying a bright point in the image data at a posterior boundary of the determined third ventricle, where the bright point can be an intensity change at an edge of the third ventricle that is also an edge of the posterior commissure; and subsequent to executing the instructions to determine the location of the anterior commissure and determine the location of the posterior commissure, instructions to automatically locate an anatomical target that is relatively indistinguishable from the surrounding structures in the image data.