Analysis of medical images, especially the extraction of anatomical structures, is a critical component of many medical applications: surgical planning and navigation, and population studies of anatomical shapes for tracking disease progression are two primary examples. We summarize recent trends in segmentation and analysis of shapes, highlighting how different sources of information have been factored into current approaches. 1 Background and Motivation The application of computer vision techniques to detailed anatomical information from volumetric medical imaging is changing medical practice, in areas ranging from surgery to clinical assessment. Automated reconstruction of precise patient-specific models of anatomic structures from medical images is becoming de rigeur for many surgical procedures, disease studies, and clinical evaluation of therapy effectiveness. For example, neurosurgeons often use navigational aids linked to labeled imagery in order to localize targets. Even the r...
W. Eric L. Grimson, Polina Golland