4D anatomically based image selection procedure for medical imaging

A method of 4D medical imaging, the method comprising:

• a) performing medical imaging to provide a plurality of 3D patient images, wherein the 3D patient images include images taken at two or more patient positions, and wherein the 3D patient images include images taken at two or more different times to cover at least one patient respiration cycle at each of the patient positions;
• b) determining a respiration value for each of the 3D images;
• c) binning the 3D images according to their respiration values into a set of image bins, wherein each image bin is defined by a bin range of respiration values, wherein the bin ranges cover the respiration values without overlapping each other, and wherein at least one image bin includes two or more of the 3D images for at least one of the patient positions;
• d) within each image bin, selecting one 3D image at each patient position according to anatomical similarity between 3D images at adjacent patient positions;
• and
• e) providing the selected 3D images as a 4D output.