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| 3D Reconstruction of Blood Vessels in Medical Imaging |
Nicole Brueschweiler
Section Microtechnique, EPFL |
Semester project
February 2006 |
Abstract |
In this semester project, an ImageJ plugin has been developed, which performs the extraction of blood vessels from a given stack of transverse CT-scans.
The implemented method is based on the propagation of a plane along the vessel. A plane, that is perpendicular to the course of the vessel and therefore might have any direction in 3D-space, is cut out of the input volume. A 2D region growing algorithm is performed on this plane, in order to find the vessel's boundaries. The plane is then propagated in a direction, which is defined by the geometry of the extracted regions. Its orientation can further be adjusted by one of two optimization methods.
The program takes into account physiological constraints such as area and circularity of the blood vessel. It is therefore possible to restrict the extraction to the blood vessels and avoid the extraction of surrounding structures such as bones, heart and kidneys.
The numerical data, which can be provided by this project, allows reconstructing the vessel in 3D. This can be used for medical applications like the study of hemodynamics.
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Fig. 1: Aorta |
Fig. 2: Iliac Arteries |
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