Medical image segmentation using minimal path deformable models with implicit shape priors

    Authors

    P. K. Yan;A. A. Kassim

    Comments

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    Abbreviated Journal Title

    IEEE T. Inf. Technol. Biomed.

    Keywords

    deformable models; energy minimization; medical image segmentation; minimal path; shape prior modeling; ACTIVE CONTOUR MODELS; ALGORITHMS; Computer Science, Information Systems; Computer Science, ; Interdisciplinary Applications; Mathematical & Computational Biology; Medical Informatics

    Abstract

    This paper presents anew method for segmentation of medical images by extracting organ contours, using minimal path deformable models incorporated with statistical shape priors. In our approach, boundaries of structures are considered as minimal paths, i.e., paths associated with the minimal energy, on weighted graphs. Starting from the theory of minimal path deformable models, an intelligent "worm" algorithm is proposed for segmentation, which is used to evaluate the paths and finally find the minimal path. Prior shape knowledge is incorporated into the segmentation process to achieve more robust segmentation. The shape priors are implicitly represented and the estimated shapes of the structures can be conveniently obtained. The worm evolves under the joint influence of the image features, its internal energy, and the shape priors. The contour of the structure is then extracted as the worm trail. The proposed segmentation framework overcomes the shortcomings of existing deformable models and has been successfully applied to segmenting various medical images.

    Journal Title

    Ieee Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine

    Volume

    10

    Issue/Number

    4

    Publication Date

    1-1-2006

    Document Type

    Article

    Language

    English

    First Page

    677

    Last Page

    684

    WOS Identifier

    WOS:000241124900005

    ISSN

    1089-7771

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