Algorithms for Extracting Vessel Centerlines

K. Krissian, Ron Kikinis, C.-F. Westin
0003
September, 2004

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Abstract

The detection of the vessels centerlines is a useful preprocessing step for 3D quantification of stenosis, topological representation of the vessel tree and registration with an atlas, virtual endoscopy, and visualization of the vascular network. We propose to compare three classes of algorithms leading to centerline representations of the vessels. The first one relies on a pre-segmentation of the vessels, given by a binary image, to compute a topological invariant skeleton. The second method extracts sub-voxel centerlines as ridges of the image intensity. It uses the gradient and the Hessian matrix to interpolate the zero-crossings of the gradient vector in the cross-sectional directions. The third method uses an integration of the gradient information along circles of different radii in the cross-sections, in order to find points located at equal distance from the contours . We present results on a Magnetic Resonance Angiography, show the advantages and the drawbacks of each method and present some perspectives.

Comparison between the methods. From top to bottom, zoom on the main arteries and their bifurcations, zoom on tangent vessels, zoom on small vessels. From left to right, isosurface of the restored image, result of the algorithms 1,2 and 3.

Reference

Krissian K, Kikinis R, Westin CF. Algorithms for extracting vessel centerlines. Technical Report 0003, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Laboratory of Mathematics in Imaging, 2004. ISSN.

Bibtex entry

@TechReport{krissianLMI0003-04,
  author         = {Karl Krissian and Ron Kikinis and Carl-Fredrik Westin},    
  title          = {Algorithms for Extracting Vessel Centerlines},             
  institution    = {Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital,     
                   Harvard Medical School},                                    
  year           = 2004,                                                       
  number         = 0003,                                                       
  address        = {Laboratory of Mathematics in Imaging},                     
  month          = {September},                                                
  note           = {ISSN}
}

Grants

CIMIT, NIH P41-RR13218 (NAC)

Research areas

Centerline, Skeletonization, Vascular, MRA