Method and apparatus for inner wall extraction and stent strut detection using intravascular optical coherence tomography imaging

An apparatus for locating a stent strut in a cross section image of a vessel comprising:

• means for identifying in said image an inner boundary of said vessel, the means for identifying comprising:
• means for placing a contour in an initial position in said image;
• and
• means for moving an edge of said contour toward said inner boundary until said contour reaches said inner boundary;
• means for detecting a location of said stent strut as a function of a plurality of intensity profiles associated with a plurality of rays in said image;
• means for transforming said image into a rectangular coordinate system to create a transformed image;
• means for rectifying said transformed image as a function of said contour;
• means for determining a sum of intensities of a plurality of pixels along a desired direction in said image;
• and
• means for identifying said location of said stent as a function of said sum of intensities.

A nontransitory computer readable medium comprising computer program instructions which, when executed by a processor, perform the steps of a method for locating a stent strut in a cross section image of a vessel, said steps comprising:

• identifying in said image an inner boundary of said vessel, the step of identifying comprising the steps of:
• placing a contour in an initial position in said image;
• and
• moving an edge of said contour toward said inner boundary until said contour reaches said inner boundary;
• detecting a location of said stent strut as a function of a plurality of intensity profiles associated with a plurality of rays in said image;
• transforming said image into a rectangular coordinate system to create a transformed image;
• rectifying said transformed image as a function of said contour;
• determining a sum of intensities of a plurality of pixels along a desired direction in said image;
• and
• identifying said location of said stent as a function of said sum of intensities.