Fast Centerline Extraction Algorithm in Virtual Colonoscopy

Objective:In virtual colonoscopy,navigation path is the foundation of moving the virtual camera and getting the inside image while extracting the centerline in the three-dimensional colon data is a hard task in the current study of virtual colonoscopy.Method: This paper presents a fast centerline extraction algorithm which generates the distance from boundary field for the colon data using the distance transform,then speeds up the propagation of the maximal-spanning tree by use of multi-resolution and the initial path points is extracted from the maximal-spanning tree,finally,the initial path points are adjusted in the original volume to guarantee the accuracy of final path and the points after adjusted are interpolated with the spline interpolation.Results:The experimental results show that the algorithm meets the requirements of clinical applications and improves computing speed.Conclusions:This algorithm can greatly reduce the computing time and the centerline can be directly used as the navigation path in the virtual Colonoscopy.