Model-based automatic recognition of blood vessels from MR images and its 3D visualization

A model-based approach is used for recognizing arterial blood vessels from MRA volumetric data. The modeling includes (1) a generalized stochastic tube model characterizing the structural properties of the vessels, and (2) a bivariate Gaussian function, modeling the expected cross sectional blood flow. This integrated model renders the recognition problem as a parameter estimation problem which is subsequently solved in a hierarchical fashion. Due to the descriptive representation for objects, a new visualization scheme for blood vessels is proposed that allows the observation of the blood flow of each cross section along a recognized vessel. Some experimental results from both synthetic data and real MRA volumes are given. The visualization of interior blood flow patterns for some vessels are also shown.