Minimallyminimally interactive soft tissue segmentation for 3-d display from tomographic images

Three-dimensional (3-D) display and volume determination of soft tissue anatomy can be clinically useful in facilitating a physician’s diagnosis, treatment, and evaluation. However current commercially available techniques for soft tissue segmentation and display have had limited success in accurately identifying soft tissue structures from two-dimensional (2-D) images. Simple global thresholding fails for a variety of reasons, requiring manual segmentation of soft tissue structures. Our objective is a robust segmentation method that eliminates the need for hand-outlining and yields reproducible results. As a step toward that objective, we have developed a software package that facilitates the use of existing segmentation methods (thresholding and hand-outlining) to segment soft tissue. Tools in this package allow the user to attain a greater success rate using thresholding, thereby decreasing the amount of hand-outlining that is required. The software package attempts to enhance reproducibilityreproducibility by minimizing user interaction.