Patent ID: 7365745

Claim:
A method for transforming a solid, three-dimensional image composed of voxels into a three-dimensional surface rendering, the method comprising eroding voxels on a surface of the solid, three-dimensional image to a first predetermined threshold; dilating the surface of the solid, three-dimensional image by adding voxels to the surface about any non-eroded surface voxels to a second predetermined threshold; removing groups of contiguous voxels numbering under a third predetermined threshold; translating data identifying all surface voxels into data representing a plurality of correlated triangular plates to render an initial three-dimensional surface image; discarding the data identifying all the voxels forming the solid, three-dimensional image; cleaning the initial three-dimensional surface image by removing a polyhedral structure formed by a group of the plurality of triangular plates; decimating the initial three-dimensional surface image by reducing in number the plurality of triangular plates forming the initial three-dimensional surface image; and smoothing the initial three-dimensional surface rendering by reducing an initial distance between a peak vertex of a polyhedral structure formed by a group of the plurality of triangular plates from a local plane.