Automated system for anatomical vessel characteristic determination

A method for anatomical blood vessel detection and display system, comprising the activities of:

• enabling a user, via a display of an image presenting anatomical vessels, to,
• mark a region of interest of a vessel identified by detected boundaries in said image and
• extend the marked region of interest of said vessel by extending the marking of the detected boundaries in the direction of a point selected by a user on the vessel into a bifurcation via a user interface, by extending a marked vessel boundary in said region of interest by marking a new center point facilitating switching vessel detection from a non-bifurcation to a bifurcation;
• automatically detecting a boundary comprising an outline of edges of said vessel in the extended marked region of interest by detecting an edge representing a change in luminance in data representing said image in the extended marked region and in the direction of a point selected by a user in said display image and by tracing the edges by including neighbouring edge pixels having substantially the same direction of edge representative luminance gradient as starting edge pixels;
• and
• identifying a minimum vessel diameter in the extended marked region of interest between the detected boundaries and for initiating identification of the location of the minimum vessel diameter in said image.

An anatomical blood vessel detection and display system, comprising:

• a user interface enabling a user, via a display of an image presenting anatomical vessels, to,
• mark a region of interest of a vessel identified by detected boundaries in said image and
• extend the marked region of interest of said vessel by extending the marking of the detected boundaries in the direction of a point selected by a user on the vessel into a bifurcation via the user interface, by extending a marked vessel boundary in said region of interest by marking a new center point facilitating switching vessel detection from a non-bifurcation to a bifurcation and preventing a user from marking said region of interest outside a vessel boundary by extending the marking of said detected boundaries in the direction of a point selected by a user on said vessel via said user interface;
• a detector for automatically detecting a boundary comprising an outline of edges of said vessel in the extended marked region of interest by detecting an edge representing a change in luminance in data representing said image in the extended marked region and in the direction of a point selected by a user in said display image and by tracing the edges by including neighbouring edge pixels having substantially the same direction of edge representative luminance gradient as starting edge pixels;
• and
• an image data processor for identifying a minimum vessel diameter in the extended marked region of interest between the detected boundaries.