Shape-based multi-region segmentation framework: application to 3D infants MRI data
Résumé
This paper presents a novel shape-guided multi-region variational region growing framework for extracting simultaneously thoracic and abdominal organs on 3D infants whole body MRI. Due to the inherent low quality
of these data, classical segmentation methods tend to fail at the multi-segmentation task. To compensate for
the low resolution and the lack of contrast and to enable the simultaneous segmentation of multiple organs, we
introduce a segmentation framework on a graph of supervoxels that combines supervoxels intensity distribution
weighted by gradient vector flow value and a shape prior per tissue. The intensity-based homogeneity criteria
and the shape prior, encoded using Legendre moments, are added as energy terms in the functional to be op-
timized. The intensity-based energy is computed using both local (voxel value) and global (neigboring regions
mean values, adjacent voxels values and distance to the neighboring regions) criteria. Inter-region conflict resolution is handled using a weighted Voronoi decomposition method, the weights being determined using tissues
densities. The energy terms of the global energy equation are weighted using an information on growth direction
and on gradient vector flow value in order to either guide the segmentation toward the image natural edges if
it is consistent with image and shape prior terms or enforce the shape prior term otherwise. Results on 3D
infants MRI data are presented and compared to a set of manual segmentations. Both visual comparison and
quantitative measurements show good results.