US Patent 7929748 Characteristic path-based colon segmentation

This document discusses, among other things, systems and methods for efficiently calculating a colon segmentation from one or more candidate virtual three-dimensional objects. A sequence of image scans are analyzed and candidate segments are identified. Landmark segments are identified from the candidate segments. A characteristic path is generated for each candidate segment. The paths are joined using a cost network and reoriented to be consistent with a typical flythrough path. The connected path is then used to generate a continuous volumetric virtual object.