Flux driven automatic centerline extraction.

Sylvain Bouix; Kaleem Siddiqi; Allen Tannenbaum

doi:10.1016/j.media.2004.06.026

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Flux driven automatic centerline extraction.

Sylvain Bouix·Kaleem Siddiqi·Allen Tannenbaum

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Abstract

We present a fast, robust and automatic method for computing centerline paths through tubular structures for application to virtual endoscopy. The key idea is to utilize a skeletonization algorithm which exploits properties of the average outward flux of the gradient vector field of a Euclidean distance function from the boundary of the structure. The algorithm is modified to yield a collection of 3D curves, each of which is locally centered. The approach requires no user interaction, is virtually parameter free and has low computational complexity. We validate the method quantitatively on a number of synthetic data sets with known centerlines and qualitatively on colon and vessel data segmented from CT and CRA images.

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Algorithms Artificial Intelligence Colonography, Computed Tomographic Endoscopy Image Enhancement Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted Imaging, Three-Dimensional Information Storage and Retrieval Pattern Recognition, Automated Surgery, Computer-Assisted User-Computer Interface Evaluation Study Journal Article Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.Validation Study

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Sylvain Bouix, Kaleem Siddiqi, Allen Tannenbaum. 2005. Flux driven automatic centerline extraction.. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.media.2004.06.026

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