Real-time segmentation of 4D ultrasound by Active Geometric Functions

Four-dimensional ultrasound based on matrix phased array transducers can capture the complex 4D cardiac motion in a complete and real-time fashion. However, the large amount of information residing in 4D ultrasound scans and novel applications under interventional settings pose a big challenge in efficiency for workflow and computer-aided diagnostic algorithms such as segmentation. In this context, a novel formulation framework of the minimal surface problem, called Active Geometric Functions (AGF), is proposed to reach truly real-time performance in segmenting 4D ultrasound data. A specific instance of AGF based on finite element modeling and Hermite surface descriptors was implemented and evaluated on 35 4D ultrasound data sets with a total of 425 time frames. Quantitative comparison to manual tracing showed that the proposed method provides LV contours close to manual segmentation and that the discrepancy was comparable to inter-observer tracing variability. The ability of such rea...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2008
• Where: ISBI
• Authors: Qi Duan, Elsa D. Angelini, Shunichi Homma, Andrew F. Laine
• Keywords: ISBI 2008, Manual Segmentation, Medical Imaging, Realtime Segmentation, Ultrasound Data