Vessel axis determination using wave front propagation analysis

Abstract

A method is presented that aims at finding the central vessel axis in two and three dimensional angiographic images based on a single user defined point. After the vessels in the image are enhanced using a special purpose filter, the operator is asked to point out the vessel of interest. Subsequently, a wave front propagation is started based on the response of the filter. By analyzing the evolution of the wave front, points are retrieved that are very likely to be part of the vessel of interest. These points can either be combined to form a connected structure or to retrieve the minimum cost path to the user defined point. In this paper examples of this approach are given that illustrate the performance of this method in different types of images and in situations where there is no or hardly any image evidence of the vessel at hand.