Patent Document ID: 8942423
Application ID: 13910620
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method of vessel temporal tracking, the method comprising: acquiring a 3D image volume; initializing one or more Kalman filter parameters using a preset configuration file; identifying a first image slice; performing an initial segmentation on the first image slice; selecting an initial center point of the segmented image slice; creating a template of a vessel cross section around the initial center point based on the initial segmentation, the template being an elliptical model; predicting a next center point using the one or more Kalman filters; finding a next center point by the steps of: copying parameters of the adapted elliptical model to a plurality of candidate points neighboring the initial center point; orienting an elliptical adaptable model around each of the plurality of candidate points using the copied parameters; searching for center points around each of the candidate points based on the elliptical adapted model around each of the candidate points; adapting the elliptical adaptable models around the candidate points to the found center points; selecting one of the candidate points whose adapted model fits best to the vessel as the next center point, updating a centerline based on the predicted or selected center point, and repeating the steps of predicting or finding a next center point until an end point of the vessel centerline or a predetermined number of iterations are reached.