TY - JOUR
T1 - Vessels as 4-D curves
T2 - Global minimal 4-D paths to extract 3-D tubular surfaces and centerlines
AU - Hua, Li
AU - Yezzi, Anthony
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received May 27, 2007; revised June 27, 2007. This work was supported in part by the NSF under Grant CCR-0133736 and in part by the NIH/ NINDS under Grant R01-NS-037747. Asterisk indicates corresponding author.
PY - 2007/9
Y1 - 2007/9
N2 - In this paper, we propose an innovative approach to the segmentation of tubular structures. This approach combines all of the benefits of minimal path techniques such as global minimizers, fast computation, and powerful incorporation of user input, while also having the capability to represent and detect vessel surfaces directly which so far has been a feature restricted to active contour and surface techniques. The key is to represent the trajectory of a tubular structure not as a 3-D curve but to go up a dimension and represent the entire structure as a 4-D curve. Then we are able to fully exploit minimal path techniques to obtain global minimizing trajectories between two user supplied endpoints in order to reconstruct tubular structures from noisy or low contrast 3-D data without the sensitivity to local minima inherent in most active surface techniques. In contrast to standard purely spatial 3-D minimal path techniques, however, we are able to represent a full tubular surface rather than just a curve which runs through its interior. Our representation also yields a natural notion of a tube's "central curve." We demonstrate and validate the utility of this approach on magnetic resonance (MR) angiography and computed tomography (CT) images of coronary arteries.
AB - In this paper, we propose an innovative approach to the segmentation of tubular structures. This approach combines all of the benefits of minimal path techniques such as global minimizers, fast computation, and powerful incorporation of user input, while also having the capability to represent and detect vessel surfaces directly which so far has been a feature restricted to active contour and surface techniques. The key is to represent the trajectory of a tubular structure not as a 3-D curve but to go up a dimension and represent the entire structure as a 4-D curve. Then we are able to fully exploit minimal path techniques to obtain global minimizing trajectories between two user supplied endpoints in order to reconstruct tubular structures from noisy or low contrast 3-D data without the sensitivity to local minima inherent in most active surface techniques. In contrast to standard purely spatial 3-D minimal path techniques, however, we are able to represent a full tubular surface rather than just a curve which runs through its interior. Our representation also yields a natural notion of a tube's "central curve." We demonstrate and validate the utility of this approach on magnetic resonance (MR) angiography and computed tomography (CT) images of coronary arteries.
KW - Eikonal equations
KW - Fast marching techniques
KW - Geodesic active contours
KW - Global minima
KW - Minimal path methods
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=34548523351&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/TMI.2007.903696
DO - 10.1109/TMI.2007.903696
M3 - Article
C2 - 17896594
AN - SCOPUS:34548523351
SN - 0278-0062
VL - 26
SP - 1213
EP - 1223
JO - IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
JF - IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
IS - 9
ER -