A MODEL-BASED APPROACH TO 3D FREEHAND ULTRASOUND IMAGING
Mike Syn and Richard Prager
December 1994
An iteratively refined shape recovery procedure for use in 3D freehand ultrasound imaging is presented. This procedure utilises models of both 3D shape and shape variation, by using vibration modes from finite element analysis in the initial shape model, and updating the model using principal components analysis (PCA). The difficulty in applying common PCA schemes, which require prior segmentation of training examples, is thus avoided. This is very important, since manual segmentation in 3D ultrasound is impractical for a reasonably sized training set, particular it has to be performed for each new class of shapes. A scale and rotation invariant shape registration procedure is also presented. Such a procedure allows the quantitative comparison of segmented shapes from ultrasound with other modalities for the purposes of validation. It also allows us to address the issue of automated specification of homologous landmarks, by registering a densely specified example which has just been segmented with the current model. The issues of model construction and volume measurement are also discussed.
Keywords: shape models, vibration modes, principal components, automated registration, model construction, volume measurement.
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