METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRACTING CONTOUR OF LEFT VENTRICLE AND LEFT ATRIUM OF THE HEART

摘要

PURPOSE:To rapidly and exactly execute processing to extract the contours of the left ventricle including the mitral valve parts or the left atrium of the heart for plural sheets of respective picked up images by decreasing manual input operations of contour points as far as possible. CONSTITUTION:An operator instructs both end points of the mitral valve part of a first image and one contour point on another contour by manual input (S1). Both ends of the mitral valve part are connected by a straight line to form the partial contour line in the mitral valve part of the first image and the partial contour lines exclusive of the mitral valve part are extracted (S2, S3). End point search ranges are set near both ends of the mitral valve parts of the respective picked up images after a second image and contour candidate lines are extracted with the respective ranges to be determined by combination of the scanning lines in both search ranges. The optimum contour candidate lines are selected from one group of the contour candidate lines by utilizing the general characteristics of the objective organs and the characteristics specific to the mitral valve parts and are adopted as the contour lines of the respective picked up images.