Axis projection for Kidney-Region-Of-Interest detection in computed tomography
Tomasz Leś, Tomasz Markiewcz, Mirosław Dziekiewicz, Małgorzata Lorent · 2020
The article presents an innovative method of scanning slices in computed tomography. The presented technique allows for automatically generation of three-dimensional projection, determined by X-Y-Z surfaces. Projections allow to calculate Kidney-Region-Of-Interest - a minimal envelope of kidney contours for all CT scans. The presented technique increases the accuracy of automatic identification and segmentation of kidneys and can be a good starting point for other techniques for identifying kidney areas on individual CT scans. This method significantly limits the area of kidney searching, thereby accelerates the operation of identification for any algorithm. The presented method is based on the technique of pixel intensity values averaging, area region-growing algorithms and morphological transformations. The presented technique has also been tested in implementation of the U-Net neural network system. Our presented solution of X-Y-Z projection is characterized by a high efficiency of visualization, comparable to the results obtained by a human expert.