Method for optimally visualizing a morphologic region of interest of a bone in an X-ray image

Method for optimally visualizing a morphologic region of interest of a bone in an X-ray image of a patient, comprising:

• receiving a set of 3D medical images of the patient's bone,
• creating a 3D bone model of at least part of the bone comprising said region of interest from said set of 3D images,
• determining a criterion representative of a visualization of an extent of said morphologic region of interest,
• automatically determining from the 3D bone model optimal relative bone and X-ray orientation so as to optimize said criterion for said patient, and
• creating at least one virtual X-ray image of the bone from said set of 3D images according to said optimal relative bone and virtual X-ray orientation;
• wherein the bone forms part of a joint and the set of 3D medical images comprises 3D images of the joint, and wherein the method further comprises:
• creating the 3D bone model of at least part of each bone of the joint including the morphologic region of interest from said set of 3D images,
• assigning to the bone joint a kinematic joint model, and
• automatically determining from the 3D bone model optimal relative bone and X-ray orientation in accordance with the kinematic joint model so as to optimize said criterion;
• wherein the bone is a femur and the criterion is an alpha angle defined as an angle between a hemi-line from a femoral sphere center in a direction of a femoral neck axis and a radius from the femoral sphere center and a point of a circumference of a femoral head-neck junction, and
• wherein optimizing the criterion comprises determining a maximum alpha angle.