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Separation and visualization of arteries and heart in 3D computed tomography angiography images

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Abstract

The visualization of arteries and heart usually plays a crucial role in the clinical diagnosis, but researchers face the problems of region selection and mutual occlusion in clinical visualization. Therefore, the arteries and the heart cannot be easily visualized by current visualization methods. To solve the problems, we propose a new framework for arteries and cardiac visualization by combining a priori knowledge and the set operations. Firstly, a suitable region can be easily determined in the transfer function space with a priori knowledge and the visual feedback results. Secondly, the arteries and the heart can be directly extracted by the marked seed point. Finally, the arteries and the heart are separated for solving mutual occlusion through the set operations. This framework can easily solve the mutual occlusion problem in clinical visualization and greatly improve the region selection method in the transfer function space. Its effectiveness has been demonstrated on the basis of many experimental results.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Automation, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Shouren Lan  (兰守忍), Benzhi Chen  (陈本智) & Lisheng Wang  (王利生)

  2. Department of Vascular Surgery, Shanghai Ninth People’s Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, 200011, China

    Chaoyi Cui  (崔超毅)

  3. Center for Machine Vision and Signal Analysis, University of Oulu, Oulu, 90014, Finland

    Xin Liu  (刘鑫)

  4. University of Michigan - Shanghai Jiao Tong University Joint Institute, Shanghai, 200240, China

    Shane Johnson & Jialiang Su  (苏佳良)

Authors
  1. Shouren Lan  (兰守忍)
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  2. Chaoyi Cui  (崔超毅)
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  3. Xin Liu  (刘鑫)
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  4. Shane Johnson
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  5. Jialiang Su  (苏佳良)
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  6. Benzhi Chen  (陈本智)
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  7. Lisheng Wang  (王利生)
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lisheng Wang  (王利生).

Additional information

Foundation item: the National Basic Research Program (973) of China (No. 2013CB329401), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 61375020), and the Cross Research Fund of Biomedical Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (No. YG2013ZD02)

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Lan, S., Cui, C., Liu, X. et al. Separation and visualization of arteries and heart in 3D computed tomography angiography images. J. Shanghai Jiaotong Univ. (Sci.) 22, 1–9 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12204-017-1792-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12204-017-1792-x

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