Device and method for obtaining an augmented patient-specific bone/cartilage model of a target anatomical structure of a patient

A computer implemented method for obtaining an augmented patient-specific bone/cartilage model of a target anatomical structure of a patient, said target anatomical structure including at least one portion of a target bone and at least one portion of a target cartilage, said method comprising:

• receiving:
• a dataset comprising 3D images acquired on a plurality of subjects, each 3D image acquired on a subject comprising a subject anatomical structure corresponding to the target anatomical structure, wherein said 3D images comprise bone tissues of the subject anatomical structure and at least part of said 3D images comprise cartilage tissues of the subject anatomical structure, and
• a previously generated patient-specific 3D model of at least one portion of said target bone of the patient;
• for at least two 3D image of the dataset, segmenting the bone tissues of the subject anatomical structure,
• determining a bone Statistical Shape Model based on said segmented bone tissues,
• for at least two 3D image of the dataset comprising cartilage tissues of the subject anatomical structure, segmenting the subject anatomical structure and performing a rigid registration of said bone Statistical Shape Model with the segmented bone tissues of the subject anatomical structure and optimizing at least one parameter of said bone Statistical Shape Model to correspond with said bone tissues so as to obtain a global dataset comprising the optimized bone Statistical Shape Model associated with the cartilage tissues from the segmented subject anatomical structure, and
• determining a global Statistical Shape Model of the at least one portion of target bone and target cartilage of the target anatomical structure based on said global dataset, said global Statistical Shape Model including a bone portion and a cartilage portion,
• performing a rigid registration of the bone portion from said global Statistical Shape Model with said patient-specific 3D model and optimizing at least one parameter of said global Statistical Shape Model to correspond with said patient-specific 3D model, and
• generating said augmented patient-specific bone/cartilage model of the target anatomical structure based on the optimized global Statistical Shape Model registered with said patient-specific 3D model.