Constraint Active Contour Model with Application to Automated Three-Dimensional Airway Wall Segmentation

For evaluating the severity of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), one is interested in inspecting the airway wall thickening due to inflammation. Although airway segmentations have being well developed to reconstruct in high order, airway wall segmentation remains a challenge task. While tackling such problem as a multi-surface segmentation, the interrelation within surfaces needs to be considered. We propose a new method for three-dimensional airway wall segmentation using spring structural active contour model. The method incorporates the gravitational field of the image and repelling force field of the inner lumen as the soft constraint and the geometric spring structure of active contour as the hard constraint to approximate a three-dimensional coupled surface readily for thickness measurements. The results show the preservation of topology constraints of coupled surfaces. In conclusion, our springy, soft-tissue-like structure ensures the globally optimal solution and waives the shortness following by the inevitable improper inner surface constraint.

• Kuo-Lung Lor
• Chi-Hsuan Tsou
• Yeun-Chung Chang
• Chung-Ming Chen

• active contour model
• airway wall
• COPD
• geometric spring structure

[1] Coxson H. 0., "Quantitative Computed Tomography Assessment of Airway Wall Dimensions Current Status and Potential Applications for Phenotyping Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease," Proc Am Thorac Soc. Vol 5: 940-945, 2008.
[2] Li K., Wu X., Chen D. Z., and Sonka M., "Optimal Surface Segmentation in Volumetric Images—A Graph-Theoretic Approach," IEEE Trans Pattern Anal Mach Intell. 2006 January; 28(1): 119-134.
[3] Petersen J., Nielsen M., Lo P., Saghir Z., Dirksen A. and Bruijne M., "Optimal Graph Based Segmentation Using Flow Lines with Application to Airway Wall Segmentation," IPMI 2011, LNCS 6801: 49-60.
[4] Cohen L. D., and Cohen I., "Finite-element Methods for Active Contour Models and Balloons for 2-D and 3-D Images," IEEE Trans. On Pattern Anal. Machine Intell., 15(11):1131-1147, Nov. 1993.
[5] Spreeuwers L. and Breeuwer M., "Detection of Left Ventricular Epi- and Endocardial Borders Using Coupled Active Contours," Computer Assisted Radiology and Surgery, 1147-1152, June 2003.
[6] Xu C. and Prince J. L., "Gradient Vector Flow: A New External Force for Snakes," IEEE Proc. Conf on Comp. Vis. Patt. Recog. (CVPR '97), 66-71.
[7] Terzopoulos D., Platt J., Barr A., and Fleischer K., "Elastically Deformable Models," Computer Graphics, Vol 21-4: 205-214, 1987.
[8] Kass, Witkin A., and Terzopoulos D., "Snake Active Contour Model" International Journal of Computer Vision, 321-331, 1988.
[9] Terzopoulos D., and Fleischer K., "Deformable Models," The Visual Computer 4(6): 306-331, 1988.
[10] Tezopoulos D., Witkin A. and Kass M., "Constraints on Deformable Models: Recovering three dimensions Shape and Nonrigid Motion," Artificial Intelligence, 36: 91-123, 1988.