Patent Document ID: 9984458
Application ID: 15030096
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of segmenting an anatomical structure in a volume represented by a 3D digital representation, the method comprising the steps of: applying a region growing algorithm to the volume starting from a seed point to generate a final mask; evaluating the final mask to identify one or more regions including unconnected structures; when a region of the one or more regions including unconnected structures is found, identifying a new seed point in the region; applying the region growing algorithm to the new seed point resulting in a seed mask; and when the seed mask intersects with the final mask, creating a segmentation mask as a combination of the seed mask and the final mask and displaying the segmentation mask of the anatomical structure, otherwise, applying a locally adaptive region growing iteration including iteratively performing the region growing algorithm to a next seed point to generate a new mask until the new mask intersects the final mask; wherein the locally adaptive region growing iteration includes: determining a first gray value distance between the next seed point and a low threshold value used to generate the seed mask and a second gray value distance between the next seed point and a high threshold value used to generate the seed mask; determining a minimum distance between the first and second gray value distances; when the minimum distance is lower than a preset threshold, enlarging a range between the low and the high threshold values so as to encompass the next seed point by replacing the low threshold value by a minimum of the low threshold value and the gray value of the next seed point and by replacing the high threshold value by a maximum of the high threshold and the gray value of the next seed point, otherwise replacing the next seed point by the new seed point; and applying the region growing algorithm to the volume starting from the new seed point to generate the new mask.