Compound object separation

摘要

Representations of an object (110) in an image generated by an imaging apparatus (100) can comprise two or more separate sub-objects, producing a compound object (500). Compound objects can negatively affect the quality of object visualization and threat identification performance. As provided herein, a compound object (500) can be separated into sub-objects. Three-dimensional image data of a potential compound object (500) is projected into a two-dimensional manifold projection (504), and segmentation is performed on the two-dimensional manifold projection of the compound object to identify sub-objects. Once sub-objects are identified, the two-dimensional, segmented manifold projection (900) is projected into three-dimensional space (1104). A three-dimensional segmentation may then be performed to identify additional sub-objects of the compound object that were not identified by the two-dimensional segmentation.

主权项

1. A method for splitting a potential three-dimensional compound object, comprising:
projecting three-dimensional image data indicative of the potential three-dimensional compound object along a first dimension to generate a two-dimensional manifold projection from the three-dimensional image data and recording a correspondence between the three-dimensional image data and the two-dimensional manifold projection, wherein each pixel in the two-dimensional manifold projection represents a stack of voxels in the three-dimensional image data that extend along the first dimension; segmenting the two-dimensional manifold projection to generate a two-dimensional segmented manifold projection indicative of one or more sub-objects, the segmenting comprising eroding a portion of the two-dimensional manifold projection; and projecting the two-dimensional segmented manifold projection into three-dimensional image data indicative of the sub-objects utilizing the correspondence between the three-dimensional image data and the two-dimensional manifold projection.