Initial steps towards automatic segmentation of the wire frame of stent grafts in CT data

For the purpose of obtaining a geometrical model of the wire frame of stent grafts, we propose three tracking methods to segment the stent's wire, and compare them in an experiment. A 2D test image was created by obtaining a projection of a 3D volume containing a stent. The image was modified to connect the parts of the stent's frame and thus create a single path. Ten versions of this image were obtained by adding different noise realizations. Each algorithm was started at the start of each of the ten images, after which the traveled paths were compared to the known correct path to determine the performance. Additionally, the algorithms were applied to 3D clinical data and visually inspected. The method based on the minimum cost path algorithm scored excellent in the experiment and showed good results on the 3D data. Future research will focus on establishing a geometrical model by determining the corner points and the crossings from the results of this method.