Spine Modeling

TNT members involved in this project:
Dr.-Ing. Tobias Klinder
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A reliable segmentation of the vertebral column is essential for numerous orthopedic, neurological, and oncological applications. In the context of computer aided spinal surgery, exact knowledge about the shape of individual vertebrae is of great importance, e.g., for spinal biopsies, implants, or the insertion of pedicle screw. The project was done in cooperation with Philips Research Europe - Hamburg.

The aim of this project is to generate a comprehensive model of the human spine. The prior knowledge covered in the model can then be used to provide an accurate segmentation of the vertebral column in CT images. From a technical point of view, the modeling of the vertebral column is of special interest as it extends the modeling of individual organs to the modeling of articulated objects. Although bony structures show high contrast in CT a reliable segmentation of the spine including a labeling of the individual vertebrae is challenging due to the similarity of neighbour structures and unclear object boundaries.

The generated model of the spine covers not only intensive shape information of the individual vertebrae but also statistical information of relative pose. Furthermore, appearance and gradient models provide an identification of vertebrae.

Show all publications
  • Matthias Ehm, Tobias Klinder, Reinhard Kneser, Cristian Lorenz
    Automated Vertebra Identification in CT images
    SPIE 2009, SPIE Medical Imaging, Orlando, Florida, USA , February 2009
  • Tobias Klinder, Jörn Ostermann, Matthias Ehm, Astrid Franz, Reinhard Kneser, Cristian Lorenz
    Automated Model-Based Vertebra Detection, Identification, and Segmentation in CT Images
    Medical Image Analysis, Elsevier, Vol. 13, pp. 471-482, 2009
  • Tobias Klinder, Robin Wolz, Cristian Lorenz, Astrid Franz, Jörn Ostermann
    Spine Segmentation Using Articulated Shape Models
    MICCAI 2008, Medical Image Computing and Computer Assisted Intervention, Springer, New York, USA, September 2008