Automated 3D heart segmentation by search rays for building individual conductor models

Magnetocardiograph (MCG) is one of the most useful diagnosing tools for myocardial ischemic diseases and the conduction abnormality, since the technique directly measures magnetic fields generated by myocardial currents without distortion in a non-invasive way. To localize the current source accurately, building a patient-specific conductor model is indispensable. In this paper, we present the method to automatically construct a patient-specific three-dimensional (3D) mesh model of a human thorax and a heart consisting of pericardium and four chambers. We represent the standard thorax model by simplex meshes, and deform them to fit into the individual CT data to reconstruct accurate surface representations for the MCG conductor model. The deformable simplex mesh model deforms based on the external forces exerted by the edge and gradient components of the source volume data while its internal force acts to maintain the integrity of the shape. However, image driven deformation is often very sensitive to its initial position. Therefore, we suggest our solution to automatic region-of-interest (ROI) detection using search rays, which are casted to 3D volume images to identify the region of a heart based on both the radiodensity values and their continuity along the path of the rays. Upon automatic ROI detection with search rays, the initial position and orientation of the standard mesh model is determined, and each vertex of the model is respectively moved by the weighted sum of the internal and eternal forces to conform to the each patient's own thorax and heart shape while minimizing the user's input.