Patent ID: 7660451

Claim:
A method for finding the location, P′, and size, r′, of a pulmonary nodule in a high-resolution three-dimensional computed tomography (CT) image, the method comprising: (a) selecting a set of initial processing parameters including an initial location, P 1 , an initial size, r 1 , and target value, T; (b) computing an initial new location P i of the nodule with a three-dimensional density-based locator template function in a first computer process performed by a computing device; (c) incrementally increasing size, r i in a second computer process performed by a computing device; (d) computing a new location P i of the nodule with the three-dimensional density-based locator template function in a third computer process performed by a computing device; (e) computing a size metric with a three-dimensional density-based sizing template function in a fourth computer process performed by a computing device; (f) repeating steps (c) through (e) until the size metric is less than the target value; (g) returning the location, P′, and the size, r′, from the previous iteration of steps (c) through (e) in a fifth computer process performed by a computing device.