Automatic detection of spine axis and spine boundary in digital radiography

摘要

A system and method for automatically detecting a spinal axis and spinal boundaries from an image, in accordance with the present invention, includes scanning an input image in at least two scan directions to generate a ridge map associated with each scan direction. The ridge maps are fused to enhance a projected spinal axis. A piece-wise linear approximation of the projected spine axis is provided, and a gradient map of the input image is enhanced project spine boundaries. Spine boundaries are determined by constraining the projected spine boundaries relative to each other and the spine axis.