Visualization of Volumetric Structures from MR Images of the Brain

Applications of Computer Vision in Medical Image Processing

Volume

Papers from the 1994 AAAI Spring Symposium

Contents

Pinta is a system for segmentation and visualization of anatomical structures obtained from serial sections reconstructed from magnetic resonance imaging. The system tpproaches the segmentation problem by assigning each volumetric region to an anatomical structure. This is accomplished by satisfying constraints at the pixelevel, slice evel, and volumetric level. Each slice is represented by an attributed graph, where nodes correspond to regions and links correspond to the relations between regions. These regions are obtained by grouping pixels based on similarity and proximity. The slice level attributed graphs are then coerced to form a volumetric attributed graph, where volunetriconsistency can be verified. The main novelty of our approach is in the use of the volumetric graph to ensure consistency from symbolic representations obtained from individual slices. In this fashion, the system allows errors to be made at the slice level, yet removes them when the columetric consistency cannot be verified. Once the segnentation is complete, the 3D surfaces of the brain can be constructed and visualized.