Registration process for myocardial images

A method for registration of a first image of a first organ and a second image of a second organ having a second organ surface, said first organ having a spatial count density corresponding roughly to a density of said first organ, comprising the steps of:

• segmentation of said first organ from tissue surrounding said first organ to provide a first organ surface using minima of first-order spatial derivatives of said spatial count density;
• performing a rigid transformation of said first organ surface to provide a first rigidly transformed organ surface so as to substantially minimize a first measure of distance between said first rigidly transformed organ surface and said second organ surface;
• and
• performing a global affine transformation of said first rigidly transformed organ surface to provide a first affine transformed organ surface so as to substantially minimize a second measure of distance between said first affine transformed organ surface and said second organ surface.

A method for registration of a first image of a first organ and a second image of a second organ having a second organ surface, said first organ having a spatial count density corresponding roughly to a density of said first organ, comprising the steps of:

• segmentation of said first organ from tissue surrounding said first organ to provide a first organ surface;
• performing a rigid transformation of said first organ surface to provide a first rigidly transformed organ surface so as to substantially minimize a first measure of distance between said first rigidly transformed organ surface and said second organ surface;
• performing a global affine transformation of said first rigidly transformed organ surface to provide a first affine transformed organ surface so as to substantially minimize a second measure of distance between said first affine transformed organ surface and said second organ surface, said second distance measure incorporating curvature information from said first rigidly transformed organ surface to match locally similar points of said first rigidly transformed organ surface to said second organ surface;
• and
• performing at least one local transformation of said first affine transformed organ surface using a spline function to provide a modified first affine transformed organ surface so as to substantially minimize a third measure of distance between said modified first affine transformed organ surface and said second organ surface.