Patent ID: 7308132

Claim:
A method for analyzing three-dimensional structures in medical images, in order to determine the location, shape and orientation of a tumor, said method comprising the steps of: finding at least one spatial extrema μ of a D-dimensional spatial signal f for a set of bandwidths H; estimating a D-dimensional spread and orientation of the signal about each extrema μ by estimating a covariance Σ of the signal f for each extrema μ; and finding a most stable estimate of μ and Σ from the at least one extrema μ and covariances Σ to find from the signal f an optimal estimate of a target structure wherein the spatial extrema μ of signal f are found by solving an equation defined by m ⁡ ( x ; H ) ≡ ∫ μ ⁢ ⁢ Φ ⁡ ( x - μ ; H ) ⁢ f ⁡ ( μ ) ⁢ ⅆ μ ∫ Φ ⁡ ( x - μ ; H ) ⁢ f ⁡ ( μ ) ⁢ ⅆ μ - x where m(x; H) is an extended fixed-bandwidth mean shift vector, x is a spatial location corresponding to a signal measurement, and Φ(x−u;H) is a Gaussian kernel for a bandwidth H.