Patent ID: 7340081

Claim:
A method for generating a computer model from scan data from a patient, comprising: (1) acquiring the scan data from the patient, wherein the scan data is acquired as a series of successive frames; (2) selecting a plurality of key frames from the scan data frames; (3) hand segmenting the selected key frames, whereby to identify specific anatomical structures; (4) automatically generating segmented intervening frames for the frames between the key frames using an interpolation process; (5) merging the automatically segmented intervening frames with the hand segmented key frames so as to generate a complete set of segmented frames; (6) obtaining a first measurement of a selected feature of the set of segmented frames; (7) updating the set of key frames by selecting at least one additional key frame, hand segmenting that at least one additional key frame, and replacing a corresponding intervening automatically segmented frame with said one additional hand segmented key frame; (8) automatically re-generating segmented intervening frames for the frames between the updated set of key frames using an interpolation process so as to provide an updated set of segmented frames; (9) obtaining a second measurement of the selected feature of the updated set of segmented frames; (10) comparing said second measurement with said first measurement; and (11) if the second measurement differs from the first measurement by a statistically significant amount, replacing the first measurement with the second measurement and repeating the process from Step 7.