Reconstruction of the Human Airways - Computational Fluid and Particle Dynamics in the Human Respiratory System - page 58

Fig. 3.8 A single region in an image that is progressively split into quad-regions when adjacent
regions do not satisfies a set criteria

For those interested in the field of computational science and image processing, the
authors suggest the following textbooks and review articles that provide greater detail
(Demirkaya 2009; González and Woods 2008; Suri 2005; Umbaugh 2005).

3.3.5 Using Specialised Medical Software

Segmentation algorithms presented in the previous section is a sample of what exists
in what is an active research field. Published algorithms in journals allow computer
scientists, who are capable of advanced programming skills, to program and imple-
ment the algorithms using computer languages such as C, C

, and Java. For most
engineers and medical practitioners this step is not feasible without programming
skills. Fortunately there exists a number of commercial and free specialised medi-
cal software that converts the CT/MRI images and applies segmentation algorithms
with an easy to use Graphical User Interface (GUI) or has a command line to execute
actions. A brief description of free and commercial software is given in Appendix
A which is a sample of what may be out in the public domain. Although each soft-
ware may differ with its own interface, presentation, and algorithms available, there
exists a generic work flow for extracting the required computational region from the
scanned images.

++

3.3.6 Surface and Volume Reconstruction

After segmentation the 3D output file can be saved under different CAD formats
which need to have certain conditions to be mesh-able. For example the outputted