Edge detection in echocardiographic image sequences by 3-D multiscale analysis

Robust and reliable edge detection is an important step for accomplishing automatic detection of heart wall boundaries in echocardiograms. We present an edge detection algorithm that makes use of both spatial and temporal information. Our algorithm is comprised of (1) a 3-D discrete dyadic wavelet transform carried out on a sequence of images, (2) edge detection that is carried out by maxima detection and a search strategy for maxima curves within the transform space. Using detected edges and “a priori” knowledge of cardiographic features we demonstrate the performance of fully automatic detection of epicardial and endocardial boundaries along the posterior and anterior walls in 2-D short-axis echocardiographic image sequences