Reconstruction of blood vessel model with adventitia from CT and IVUS images for FSI analysis

Abstract

In achieving 3D model of blood vessel from computed tomography (CT), it is not easy to separate intima and adventitia since the portion of the blood vessel in a CT volume data is relatively too small and does not have sufficient resolution nor distinctive voxel intensity. In case of using vascular contrast agent, detection of the intima is feasible but detection of adventitia is still difficult. This paper proposes a 3D reconstruction process of blood vessel from CT images with intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images. The shape of intima is achieved from CT data and then converted to polygonal data with iso-surface extraction. A representative shape of the polygonal data is approximated into a B-spline curve. If adventitial shape from IVUS image is appropriately positioned on the curve at the location of the IVUS data acquisition, the cross section shape of adventitia on the location is defined. The 3D surface model of intima and adventitia is constructed from the series of cross section contours.