Panoramic visualization of coronary arterial tree

A system for generating a panoramic visualization of a coronary arterial tree of a subject, the system comprising a processor configured for performing operations comprising:

• acquiring an image volume of a thoracic cavity of the subject, the image volume providing a three-dimensional (3D) representation of the thoracic cavity;
• isolating a coronary structure in the 3D representation by abating one or more other anatomical structures in the thoracic cavity, the isolated coronary structure including a heart, aorta, great vessels, and the coronary arterial tree;
• abating one or more portions of the isolated coronary structure that attenuate visualization of the coronary arterial tree, the one or more portions being segmented from the aorta and coronary arterial tree;
• generating, by maximum intensity projection (MIP), a plurality of MIP images of the isolated coronary structure;
• and
• compositing the MIP images to generate the panoramic visualization of the coronary arterial tree
• wherein said isolating of the coronary structure comprises:
• abating the one or more other anatomical structures based on a predefined threshold value;
• generating a heart mask after abating the one or more anatomical structures;
• and
• extracting the coronary structure by applying a meanshift-based technique on the heart mask.