Patent 8131035 was granted and assigned to Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Inc. on March, 2012 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A computer implemented method for differentiating between elements of an image and a background includes inputting an image comprising pixels forming a view of the elements and a background, providing a model for assigning a probability of belonging to a predefined class to each of the pixels, assigning a probability to each of the pixels of belonging to the predefined class, labeling each of the pixels according to a corresponding probability and a predefined threshold, determining boundaries between groups of like-labeled pixels, and outputting a visualization of the boundaries.