Patent Document ID: 8275182
Application ID: 12240878
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A computer readable medium having instructions and statements stored therein for execution by a processor to perform a method for delineating the contour of a tissue region in a captured medical image, the captured image comprising a captured cross-section of the tissue region, the method comprising the steps of: (a) generating a transformed image of the captured image by applying a transformation to the captured image such that the captured cross-section in the captured image is transformed into a transformed cross-section in the transformed image that resembles a pre-determined two-dimensional shape which is more computationally tractable than the captured cross-section; (b) solving for an initial edge contour of the tissue region by fitting the pre-determined two-dimensional shape to the transformed cross-section; (c) detecting the edge of the transformed cross-section by applying an edge-detector method within a search area of the transformed image about the initial edge contour; (d) solving for a final edge contour by fitting the pre-determined two-dimensional shape to the detected edge of the transformed cross-section; (e) solving for the two-dimensional contour of the tissue region in the captured image by applying the inverse of the transformation to the final edge contour; and (f) displaying the two-dimensional contour on a display.