Intravascular ultrasonic analysis using active contour method and system

A method of intravascular analysis of an intravascular image, the intravascular image being generated from data acquired by an ultrasonic device which radially scans a vascular object internally, the method comprising the steps of:

• converting the intravascular image to a Cartesian format, the intravascular image representing a boundary of the vascular object;
• selecting a plurality of boundary points on the intravascular image in a vicinity of the boundary;
• generating a first boundary contour based on the plurality of boundary points;
• generating a second boundary contour based on a radial boundary determination performed on a polar image of the intravascular image;
• and
• adjusting the first boundary contour by an influence from the second boundary contour to obtain an optimized boundary contour.

A method of determining a boundary contour of a blood vessel from a series of intravascular ultrasound images which are generated from data acquired radially within the blood vessel by an ultrasonic device, the method comprising the steps of:

• selecting a starting image and an ending image from the series of intravascular ultrasound images which define a group of images having intermediate images therebetween;
• selecting boundary points on the starting and ending images which are in a vicinity of and partially outline a boundary of the blood vessel;
• generating a starting contour outlining the boundary of the blood vessel based on the boundary points of the starting image and generating an ending contour outlining the boundary of the blood vessel based on the boundary points of the ending image;
• generating intermediate contours outlining the boundary of the blood vessel for each of the intermediate images based on the starting and ending contours;
• and
• determining a boundary contour of the blood vessel in three dimensions based on the starting, intermediate and ending contours.