IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD FOR PARTITIONING THREE-DIMENSIONAL OBJECT AT NARROW PART OF SHAPE, IMAGE PROCESSING PROGRAM, AND IMAGE PROCESSING DEVICE

摘要

An image processing method is provided which, in image diagnosis, can limit the inspection area to around the organ to be diagnosed, and further enables intuitively understanding the three-dimensional shape of the organ. Given binary three-dimensional data representing a mass in three-dimensional space, the image processing method partitions the mass into individual segments with boundaries at the narrow parts of the shape of the mass. When applying this technique to image diagnosis, a series of organs can be partitioned into individual organ segments at the narrow parts of the shape because it is possible to identify the individual organs by shape even when the series of organs has no numerical difference at the boundaries in the image. As a result of this, an area restricted to the region of the target organ can be inspected during image diagnosis, and during image interpretation, inspection can be carried out while referring to a three-dimensional display with which the three-dimensional shape of the organ can be intuitively understood.