US 8,571,278 B2Granted

System and methods for multi-object multi-surface segmentation

AssigneeUniversity of Iowa Research Foundation

InventorsMilan Sonka, Xiaodong Wu, Yin Yin, Xiangmin Zhang

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Abstract

A system and methods for the efficient segmentation of globally optimal surfaces representing object boundaries in volumetric datasets is provided. An optical surface detection system and methods are provided that are capable of simultaneously detecting multiple interacting surfaces in which the optimality is controlled by the cost functions designed for individual surfaces and by several geometric constraints defining the surface smoothness and interrelations. The present invention includes surface segmentation using a layered graph-theoretic approach that optimally segments multiple interacting surfaces of a single object using a pre-segmentation step, after which the segmentation of all desired surfaces of the object are performed simultaneously in a single optimization process.

Claims25

Dependent claims

A method for image segmentation comprising the steps of:

representing n-dimensional image data as an m-dimensional structure to form an image representation using a graph-search approach, wherein said n-dimensional image data represents an image that depicts multiple objects and each of the multiple objects has one or more surfaces;
forming one or more regions of a q-ary object interaction to form a specified q-ary inter-object relationship;
calculating a cost functional related to the m-dimensional structure and the one or more regions of the q-ary object interaction;
and segmenting the n-dimensional image data with one or more layer surfaces of multiple objects using the cost functional, the image representation, and the specified q-ary inter-object relationship to produce segmented layers, thereby simultaneously segmenting the image that depicts multiple objects.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 12/291,803Filed 13 Nov 2008 · continuation in part
Priority: 24 Jun 2005
Published: US 2009/0136103 A128 May 2009
Granted: 29 Oct 2013
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification11 codes

G06T 7/11
Segmentation; Edge detection: region-based segmentation
G06F 18/2323
Non-hierarchical techniques: based on graph theory, e.g. minimum spanning trees [MST] or graph cuts
G06T 7/12
Segmentation; Edge detection: edge-based segmentation
G06V 10/457
Local feature extraction by analysis of parts of the pattern, e.g. by detecting edges, contours, loops, corners, strokes or intersections;…: by…

Family

Application60/694,075Us provisional application · filed 24 Jun 2005
Application11/474,070Parent of this continuation-in-part · filed 23 Jun 2006
US 2009/0136103 A1Pre-grant publication · published 28 May 2009
US 7,995,810 B2Parent of this continuation-in-part
US 2007/0058865 A1Published application
US 8,571,278 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.

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