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Cardiac valve annulus manual segmentation using computer assisted visual feedback in three-dimensional image data
Ramon Casero1, Rebecca A B Burton, T Quinn
1Computational Biology Group, Computing Laboratory, University of Oxford, Wolfson Building, Parks Rd, OX1 3QD, UK. ramon.casero@comlab.ox.ac.uk
Insights
This study introduces a new Spline Tool for heart valve segmentation, enhancing speed and accuracy. The tool offers real-time visual feedback, improving the analysis of cardiac anatomy and physiology.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular anatomy and physiology
- Medical image analysis
- Computational biology
Background:
- Manual segmentation of heart valves is crucial for studying cardiac anatomy and physiology.
- Traditional methods include slice-by-slice segmentation and spline interpolation of landmarks.
- Existing techniques can be time-consuming and may lack real-time feedback for spatial coherence.
Purpose of the Study:
- To introduce a novel Spline Tool for open-source software Seg3D.
- To improve the speed and spatial coherence of manual annulus segmentation.
- To provide real-time visual feedback during the segmentation process.
Main Methods:
- Development of a new Spline Tool integrated into the Seg3D platform.
- Utilizing spline-based interpolation for manual segmentation of cardiac valves.
- Real-time visual feedback mechanism to guide segmentation.
Main Results:
- The Spline Tool demonstrated fast performance.
- Improved spatial coherence in segmentation results.
- Successful application on 14 rat hearts across all four major valves (mitral, tricuspid, aortic, pulmonary).
Conclusions:
- The new Spline Tool offers an efficient and effective method for manual annulus segmentation.
- Real-time visual feedback enhances the accuracy and usability of the segmentation process.
- The tool is a valuable addition to cardiac image analysis research.
Abstract:
Annulus manual segmentation is an important tool for the study of valve anatomy and physiology, for the four main valves of the heart (mitral, tricuspid, aortic and pulmonary). In this paper we review two traditional manual segmentation approaches: slice-by-slice and interpolating a sparse set of landmarks with a spline curve. We propose a new Spline Tool for the open source software platform Seg3D, that is fast and improves spatial coherence by providing visual feedback of the segmentation in real time. The Spline Tool was tested successfully on 14 rat hearts, on all four valves.
