Patent Document ID: 9406130
Application ID: 14438519
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A data processing method for determining data which are referred to as atlas data and comprise information on a description of an image of a general anatomical structure, wherein this image is referred to as the atlas image, the method comprising the following steps performed by a computer: acquiring patient data which comprise a description of a set of images of an anatomical structure of a set of associated patients, wherein the images are referred to as patient images and each patient image is associated with a parameter set which comprises one or more parameters given when the patient images are generated, wherein the parameters influence representations of anatomical elements as expressed by image values in the patient images, the patient data comprising the patient image set and the parameter sets associated with the patient image set; acquiring model data which comprise information on a description of an image of a model of an anatomical structure of a patient which is referred to as the model image and is associated with the parameter set, the model data describing an anatomical atlas to be improved by the data processing method; wherein the model of an anatomical structure is referred to as the model structure and comprises models of a plurality of anatomical elements which are referred to as model elements; wherein the model data comprise: model spatial information on a description of the spatial information on the model structure; and/or model element representation information on a description of a plurality of representation data sets which contain information on representations of the plurality of model elements in the model images to be determined and are referred to as model representation data sets, wherein the model element representation information also describes a determination rule for determining respective model representation data sets for respective model elements in accordance with respective parameter sets; wherein acquiring the model data involves determining, on the basis of the model data and the patient data, the set of model images which respectively represent at least a part of the model structure by using the spatial information on the model structure and particular model representation data sets which are determined by applying the determination rule in accordance with the one or more associated parameter sets and particular model elements referred to as corresponding model elements, which are to be matched to corresponding anatomical elements represented in the patient image and referred to as patient elements; determining matching transformations which are referred to as PM transformations and which are constituted to respectively match the set of patient images of the set of patients to the set of determined model images by matching images associated with the same parameter set; determining an inverse average transformation by applying an inverting and averaging operation to the determined PM transformations; and determining the atlas data by: applying the determined inverse average transformation to the model data; or respectively applying the determined PM transformations to the respective patient images in order to determine matched patient images, averaging the matched patient images in order to determine an average matched patient image, and determining the atlas data by applying the determined inverse average transformation to the average matched patient image.