Segmentation and modeling of approximately rotationally symmetric objects in 3D ultrasound

We describe a method for segmentation and modeling of approximately rotationally symmetric objects in 3D ultrasound. The proposed algorithm is based on 2D segmentation of several slices of an ultrasound volume dataset. It requires semiautomatic 2D segmentation of only two slices by an interactive process which is based on a discrete dynamic contour. A tiling algorithm leads to a 2D starting contour in every slice. A fully automatic segmentation process is then performed to all slices simultaneously. The result is a triangular mesh of the segmented object.