The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences (한국통신학회논문지)

The Korean Institute of Commucations and Information Sciences (한국통신학회)
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Knee Articular Cartilage Segmentation with Priors Based On Gaussian Kernel Level Set Algorithm

사전정보를 이용한 가우시안 커널 레벨 셋 알고리즘 기반 무릎 관절 연골 자기공명영상 분할기법

  • Received : 2014.03.15
  • Accepted : 2014.06.05
  • Published : 2014.06.30
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Abstract

The thickness of knee joint cartilage causes most diseases of knee. Therefore, an articular cartilage segmentation of knee magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is required to diagnose a knee diagnosis correctly. In particular, fully automatic segmentation method of knee joint cartilage enables an effective diagnosis of knee disease. In this paper, we analyze a well-known level-set based segmentation method in brain MRI, and apply that method to knee MRI with solving some problems from different image characteristics. The proposed method, a fully automatic segmentation in whole process, enables to process faster than previous semi-automatic segmentation methods. Also it can make a three-dimension visualization which provides a specialist with an assistance for the diagnosis of knee disease. In addition, the proposed method provides more accurate results than the existing methods of articular cartilage segmentation in knee MRI through experiments.

무릎 관절 연골은 두께가 얇아 대부분 무릎 질환의 원인이 되고 있다. 그러므로 무릎 자기공명영상에서 관절 연골 분할은 무릎 질환의 정확한 진단을 위한 필수조건이다. 특히 수동이 아닌 전자동 방식으로 무릎 관절 연골을 분할하여야만 효과적인 무릎 질환 진단을 할 수 있다. 본 논문에서는 뇌 자기공명영상에서 대표적으로 사용되는 레벨 셋 기반의 영상 분할 기법을 분석하여 무릎 자기공명영상에 적용 시 문제점을 파악하고 이를 해결함으로써, 무릎 자기공명영상에 레벨 셋 기반 영상분할 방식을 적용하였다. 이는 본 논문에서 제안하는 분할기법을 사용할 경우 무릎 관절 연골 분할에 대한 모든 과정이 전자동화 되어 기존 반자동화 방식보다 빠른 처리가 가능하며, 3차원 형상화를 통해 보다 정확한 진단에 도움을 줄 수 있다. 또한 우리는 제안하고 있는 분할기법이 기존 대표적인 무릎 관절 분할보다 더 높은 정확도를 갖는 것을 실험을 통해 확인할 수 있었다.

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References

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