3-D shape analysis of anatomical structures based on an interactive multiresolution approach

Abstract

3-D shape comparison of anatomical objects is essential task in distinguishing between abnormal and normal organs. Such discrimination is also necessary in following up patients for the evaluation of treatments. This paper presents an efficient representation and analysis method for 3-D shape comparison based on a multiresolution approach. Initially, we reconstruct anatomical objects by adapting a multiresolution deformable surface model to the image pyramid with a coarse-to-fine fashion in order to avoid false surface. Then we interactively compare the reconstructed objects by multiresolution analysis based on an Octree structure. The partial comparison at specific location helps to focus on a region of interest within an anatomical structure and to detect local shape changes easily. We present some results of applying our method to the extracted brain cortical surfaces from MR images. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.