An optical approach to validate ultrasound surface segmentation of the heart
Bo Wang, Alexander Schlaefer, Zhenxi Zhang · Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE · 2014
The patient specific geometry of the heart is of interest for a number of diagnostic methods, e.g., when modeling the inverse electrocardiography (ECG) problem. One approach to get images of the heart is three-dimensional ultrasound. However, segmentation of the surface is complicated and segmentation methods are typically validated against manually drawn contours. This requires considerable expert knowledge. Hence, we have developed a setup that allows studying the accuracy of image segmentation from cardiac ultrasound. Using an optical tracking system, we have measured the three-dimensional surface of an isolated porcine heart. We studied whether the actual geometry can be reconstructed from both optical and ultrasound images. We illustrate the use of our approach in quantifying the segmentation result for a three-dimensional region-based active contour algorithm.