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Segmentation of 3D Tubular Tree Structures in Medical Images ...

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3.3. Image Based Approach 53<br />

can be utilized for the group<strong>in</strong>g/l<strong>in</strong>kage <strong>in</strong> regions with significant deviation from a<br />

typical tubular shape, is shown. As a measure <strong>of</strong> medialness Hassouna and Farag [53, 54]<br />

applied the follow<strong>in</strong>g weight<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> the GVF magnitude |V (x)|:<br />

(<br />

) q<br />

|V(x)| − m<strong>in</strong>|V(x)|<br />

λ(x) = 1.0 −<br />

(3.2)<br />

max|V(x)| − m<strong>in</strong>|V(x)|<br />

with 0.0 < q < 1.0 <strong>in</strong> comb<strong>in</strong>ation with their levelset based skeletonization approach. As<br />

can be seen from the medialness images, the GVF magnitude decreases with <strong>in</strong>creas<strong>in</strong>g<br />

distance from the surfaces <strong>of</strong> the structures. This property is <strong>in</strong>dependent <strong>of</strong> the size <strong>of</strong> the<br />

structures and it is also preserved <strong>in</strong> areas where the tubes do not show a circular crosssection.<br />

For our purpose, we utilized the weight<strong>in</strong>g <strong>of</strong> the GVF magnitude as applied by<br />

Hassouna and Farag only for visualization <strong>in</strong> Fig. 3.2(d), while for the actual extraction a<br />

similar but simpler medialness measure is used: M(x) = 1 − |V(x)|. From the medialness<br />

images, the medial curves can be extracted as the height-ridges us<strong>in</strong>g the ridge traversal<br />

procedure presented <strong>in</strong> Section 2.4.<br />

For our image based group<strong>in</strong>g and l<strong>in</strong>kage, we search for connect<strong>in</strong>g paths between the<br />

identified tubular structures <strong>in</strong> the medialness map M(x). Therefor, start<strong>in</strong>g from each<br />

endpo<strong>in</strong>t <strong>of</strong> each tubular structure the associated height-ridge <strong>in</strong> the medialness map is<br />

traversed <strong>in</strong> the direction po<strong>in</strong>t<strong>in</strong>g away from the tubular structure <strong>in</strong>to the direction where<br />

the shape strongly deviates from the typical tube shape. The traversal is stopped when the<br />

medialness falls below a given threshold m m<strong>in</strong> or a centerl<strong>in</strong>e po<strong>in</strong>t <strong>of</strong> a tubular structure<br />

is found. The extracted traversal path is analyzed if it forms a valid connection/l<strong>in</strong>kage<br />

path and added as a l<strong>in</strong>k between the tubular structures if it is valid. A traversal path<br />

<strong>in</strong> the medialness map is assumed as a valid l<strong>in</strong>k if the traversal ends at another tubular<br />

object and if the gray values along the l<strong>in</strong>kage path do not change too much; therefor the<br />

maximal gray value difference d = max x∈path |I(x)−I tube | between the l<strong>in</strong>kage path po<strong>in</strong>ts<br />

and the average gray value I tube <strong>of</strong> the considered tubular structure has to stay below a<br />

given threshold d < γ diff .<br />

In this way the tubular structures are grouped and l<strong>in</strong>ked together based on image<br />

<strong>in</strong>formation. The overall approach allows for extraction <strong>of</strong> complete CSs from tubular<br />

networks directly from gray value images by utiliz<strong>in</strong>g the same GVF field two-fold, for a<br />

bottom-up identification <strong>of</strong> tubular structures and for an extraction <strong>of</strong> medial curves also<br />

<strong>in</strong> the regions that strongly deviate from the typical tubular shape.

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