Soft tissue modeling and planning system for orthopedic surgical procedures

A method for modeling a soft-tissue structure of a patient, the method comprising:

• storing, by a memory, patient-specific computed tomography (CT) image data generated from the patient;
• receiving, by processing circuitry, the patient-specific CT image data from the memory;
• determining, by the processing circuitry and based on intensities of the patient-specific CT image data, a patient-specific shape representative of the soft-tissue structure;
• wherein determining the patient-specific shape comprises:
• receiving an initial shape;
• determining a plurality of surface points on the initial shape;
• registering the initial shape to the patient-specific CT image data;
• identifying one or more contours in the patient-specific CT image data representative of at least a partial boundary of the soft-tissue structure, wherein identifying the one or more contours comprises:
• generating a Hessian feature image from the patient-specific CT image data, wherein the Hessian feature image indicates regions of the patient-specific CT image data comprising higher intensity gradients between two or more voxels of the patient-specific CT image data,
• identifying, based on the Hessian feature image, one or more separation zones between the soft-tissue structure and an adjacent soft-tissue structure;
• and
• determining at least a portion of the one or more contours as passing through the one or more separation zones;
• iteratively moving the plurality of surface points towards respective locations of the one or more contours to change the initial shape to a patient-specific shape;
• and
• outputting, by the processing circuitry, the patient-specific shape for display overlaid on the patient-specific CT image data.