Inventors:
Arie E. Kaufman - Plainview NY, US
Wei Hong - Stony Brook NY, US
Xianfeng Gu - Bethpage NY, US
Feng Qiu - Stony Brook NY, US
Assignee:
The Research Foundation of State University of New York - Stony Brook NY
International Classification:
G06K 9/00
US Classification:
382128, 382130, 382131, 600407, 600416, 600425, 600431
Abstract:
In the present methods, the automatic detection of polyps is converted into a 2D pattern recognition problem using conformal mapping and direct volume rendering. The colon surface is first segmented and extracted from the CT data set of the abdomen, which is then mapped to a 2D plane using conformal mapping. Ray casting is used to determine sub-surface density values and the flattened image is rendered using a volume rendering technique with a translucent electronic biopsy transfer function. Polyp candidates are detected by a clustering method which identifies regions of elevated sub-surface density. The potential for false positives is reduced by analyzing the volumetric shape and texture features of the polyp candidate regions.