US Patent 7813549 Image segmentation in a volume data set

Coronary artery segmentation is a crucial task in cardiac CT image processing. This is often a tedious task performed manually by an operator. According to the present invention, a method is provided which combines data from multiple cardiac phases during the segmentation process in order to deliver a complete and continuous coronary vessel tree. Advantageously, this may allow for an improved visualization and segmentation of vessels, for example, in coronary CTA.