Development of extraction method of kidneys from abdominal CT images using a three‐dimensional deformable model

Abstract

AbstractThis paper presents a method of extraction of kidneys from abdominal CT images using a three‐dimensional deformable model. In the proposed method, an initial surface model is located in an appropriate position of the image and deformed to fit the target's boundaries. Shape feature is incorporated into the deformable model through energy function as a priori knowledge of the target. Concretely, principal curvatures of the model surface are adopted to characterize the geometrical features of the target and its mean and covariance with the neighboring shape are considered when the deformation is demonstrated. We have applied the proposed method to extract kidneys from three‐dimensional abdominal CT images. The experimental results are presented and the effectiveness of the method is discussed in this paper. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Syst Comp Jpn, 34(5): 25–36, 2003; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/scj.10268