Method and system for displaying unseen areas in guided two dimensional colon screening

A method for displaying unseen areas in guided two dimensional (2D) colon screening, comprising:

• calculating segmentation and colon surface for a colon;
• calculating a centerline for said colon;
• utilizing a two dimensional (2D) image reading process of observing an axial cross-sectional image of a colon on an axial image plane for:
• scrolling through a series of 2D image plane positions;
• marking, in a current cross-sectional 2D image of a colon in a current image plane, a current point of intersection of a current portion of a centerline of said current cross-sectional 2D image and said current image plane as a focus point;
• extracting a colon surface portion in a connected colon component containing said focus point;
• marking voxels of said colon surface portion as “seen”, wherein said step of marking said voxels of said colon surface portion as “seen” comprises coloring in a distinctive color;
• and
• fading said distinctive color in accordance with the distance of said respective portions of said centerline from said current image, said distance being in terms of sequence progression along said centerline.

A method for displaying unseen areas in guided two dimensional (2D) colon screening, comprising:

• calculating segmentation and colon surface for a colon;
• utilizing a two dimensional (2D) image reading process of observing an axial cross-sectional image of a colon on an axial image plane;
• scrolling through a series of image plane positions by scrolling from an axial image plane position looking into said colon;
• deriving a centerline for said series of image plane positions;
• and
• calculating, for each image plane position a respective point of intersection of said centerline of said colon therewith;
• at each currently observed image plane position, marking a current portion of said centerline at its respective point of intersection as a focus point and in the event of a plurality of points of intersection of an image plane with said centerline being present, marking as said focus point only that portion of said centerline corresponding to a point of intersection of said plurality which is closest to said current portion of said centerline;
• extracting a colon surface portion in a connected colon component containing said focus point;
• marking voxels of said colon surface portion as “seen”;
• calculating unseen areas of said colon surface by subtracting seen areas from a predetermined total colon surface area;
• scrolling to a next image as the next currently observed image plane position;
• removing said marking as a focus point;
• and
• marking a next respective current portion of said centerline associated with its respective point of intersection with said next currently observed image plane position as a next focus point.

A method for displaying unseen areas in guided two dimensional (2D) colon screening, comprising:

• calculating segmentation and colon surface for a colon;
• utilizing a two dimensional (2D) image reading process of observing an axial cross-sectional image of a colon on an axial image plane;
• scrolling through a series of image plane positions by scrolling from an axial image plane position looking into said colon;
• deriving a centerline for said series of image plane positions;
• calculating, for each image plane position a respective point of intersection of said centerline of said colon therewith;
• at each currently observed image plane position, marking a current portion of said centerline at its respective point of intersection in a first distinctive manner as a focus point;
• in the event of a plurality of points of intersection of an image plane with said centerline being present, marking in said first distinctive manner only that portion of said centerline corresponding to a point of intersection of said plurality which is closest to said current portion of said centerline;
• extracting a colon surface portion in a connected colon component containing said focus point marking voxels of said colon surface portion as first “seen” areas;
• calculating first unseen areas of said colon surface by subtracting seen areas from a predetermined total colon surface area;
• scrolling to a next image as the next currently observed image plane position;
• overwriting said first distinctive manner with a second distinctive manner;
• marking a next respective current portion of said centerline associated with its respective point of intersection with said next currently observed image plane position in said first distinctive manner as a next focus point;
• extracting a next colon surface portion in a connected colon component containing said focus point marking voxels of said colon surface portion as second “seen” areas;
• and
• calculating next unseen areas of said colon surface by subtracting said second seen areas from a said first seen areas.