Patent ID: 7835555

Claim:
A method for detecting airways in 3-dimensional image data, comprising: receiving 3D lung image data; filtering, by a processor, the 3D lung image data using one or more filters based on multiple first and second order derivatives of the 3D lung image data; and detecting, by a processor, airways in the 3D lung image data based on the filtered 3D lung image data, wherein the 3D lung image data comprises a plurality of voxels, and said step of filtering the 3D lung image data comprises: calculating a gradient at each voxel of said plurality of voxels; filtering each voxel of the 3D lung image data using a first filter based on the gradient calculated at each voxel to calculate a first filter value for each voxel; calculating a curvature measure at each voxel of said plurality of voxels; filtering each voxel of the 3D lung image data using a second filter based on the curvature calculated at each voxel to calculate a second filter value for each voxel; and combining the first and second filter values for each voxel to determine a voxel score associated with each voxel.