Velocity based segmentation in phase contrast MRI images

Abstract

Phase contrast MRI is a relatively new technique that extends standard MRI by obtaining flow information for tissue in the human body. The output data is a velocity vector field in a three-dimensional (3D) volume. This paper presents a method for 3D segmentation of blood vessels and determining the surface of the inner wall using this vector field. The proposed method uses a variational formulation and the segmentation is performed using the level set method. The purpose of this paper is to show that it is possible to perform segmentation using only velocity data which would indicate that velocity is a strong cue in these types of segmentation problems. This is shown in experiments. A novel vector field discontinuity detector is introduced and used in the variational formulation. The performance of this measure is tested with satisfactory results. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.