Apparatus and method for quantitative assessment of medical images for diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

A visualization apparatus for assisting medical image diagnosis, the visualization apparatus comprising:

• memory configured to store at least one instruction;
• and
• a processor configured to execute the at least one instruction;
• wherein the processor executes the at least one instruction to:
• acquire first intensity values of first voxels in a lung region during inspiration, segmented from a chest computed tomography (CT) image acquired during inspiration, as first coordinate values of the first voxels;
• acquire differences between second intensity values of second voxels, registered into the first voxels as voxels in the lung region during expiration segmented from a chest CT image acquired during expiration, and the first intensity values as second coordinate values of the first voxels;
• and
• visualize a distribution of the first voxels by mapping the first voxels based on the first coordinate values and the second coordinate values.