Extracting and Visualizing Uncertainties in Segmentations from 3D Medical Data

Faltin, Peter; Chaisaowong, Kraisorn; Kraus, Thomas; Merhof, Dorit

Extracting and Visualizing Uncertainties in Segmentations from 3D Medical Data

Files

031-039.pdf (2.29 MB)

Date

2014

Authors

Faltin, Peter
Chaisaowong, Kraisorn
Kraus, Thomas
Merhof, Dorit

Publisher

The Eurographics Association

Abstract

Assessing surfaces of segmentations extracted from 3D image data for medical purposes requires dedicated extraction and visualization methods. In particular, when assessing follow-up cases, the exact volume and confidence level of the segmentation surface is crucial for medical decision-making. This paper introduces a new processing chain comprising a series of carefully selected and well-matched steps to determine and visualize a segmentation boundary. In a first step, the surface, segmentation confidence and statistical partial volume are extracted. Then, a mesh-based method is applied to determine a refined boundary of the segmented object based on these properties, whilst smoothness, confidence of the surface and partial volume are considered locally. In contrast to existing methods, the proposed approach is able to guarantee the estimated volume for the whole segmentation, which is an important prerequisite for clinical application. Furthermore, a novel visualization method is presented which was specifically designed to simultaneously provide information about 3D morphology, confidence and possible errors. As opposed to classical visualization approaches that take advantage of color and transparency but need some geometric mapping and interpretation from the observer, the proposed scattered visualization utilizes density and scattering, which are much closer and more intuitively related to the original geometric meaning. The presented method is particularly suitable to assess pleural thickenings from follow-up CT images, which further illustrates the potential of the proposed method.

        @inproceedings{10.2312:vcbm.20141181
http::/hdl.handle.net/10.2312/vcbm.20141181.031-039
,
booktitle = {Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine
},
editor = {Ivan Viola and Katja Buehler and Timo Ropinski
},
title = {{Extracting and Visualizing Uncertainties in Segmentations from 3D Medical Data
}},
author = {Faltin, Peter and 
Chaisaowong, Kraisorn and 
Kraus, Thomas and 
Merhof, Dorit
},
year = {2014
},
publisher = {The Eurographics Association
},
ISSN = {2070-5778
},
ISBN = {978-3-905674-62-0
},
DOI = {10.2312/vcbm.20141181
http://hdl.handle.net/10.2312/vcbm.20141181.031-039
}
}