Patent Document ID: 7558417
Application ID: 10999073
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for analyzing a three-dimensional (3D) image representative of an initial volume of interest (VOI) containing a lesion, the 3D image having an associated binary map comprising voxels associated with a thresholded variance map of the initial VOI the initial VOI having boundaries that may be defined by a cube, the method comprising: determining a final VOI that is less than the initial VOI, the final VOI being a function of the number of transitions from a boundary voxel to a filtered voxel at an outer boundary of the lesion; analyzing the final VOI to determine a nodule consistency class; and classifying the VOI based upon the computed nodule consistency class by applying a voxel-olustering algorithm; and displaying the final VOI with respect to three classifications of tissue; wherein the determining a final VOI comprises: identifying a seed within the initial VOI and projecting a multitude of first rays from the seed toward each of the six faces of the cube, a normal ray being defined by those first rays that have a direction normal to a face of the cube; with respect to each first ray and traveling outward from the seed, identifying a point on each first ray at which a first transition occurs from a boundary voxel to a filtered voxel, thereby defining a transition point; from each transition point, projecting a second ray onto the normal ray associated with the sanie cube face as the respective first ray; defining a final VOI as that volume of voxels containing a defined percentage of the total number of projected second rays; using the final VOI to distinguish data representative of solid tissue and non-solid tissue from background, the three classifications of tissue, thereby enabling determination of an outer boundary of the lesion.