Patent Document ID: 20090297010
Application ID: 12453950
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for visualizing tubular anatomical structures in medical 3D image records, comprising: a) providing 3D image data of the tubular anatomical structure; b) determining a centerline of the tubular anatomical structure in the 3D image data; c) selecting a point of the determined centerline; d) generating a 2D slice image assigned to the selected point, the 2D slice image representing a sectional plane in the 3D image data, the sectional plane being arranged relative to a section of the centerline, the section including the point, a prescribable section start point and a section end point of the section, such that an orthogonal distance from the sectional plane for each centerline point of the section is less than or equal to a prescribed value R, R being selected to be relatively greater than a value R krit and R krit specifying a value of R for which precisely one such sectional plane is determinable; and e) visually displaying the generated 2D slice image.