关键词: 血管增强, Hessian矩阵, 线形滤波器, 血管分割

Abstract: The line filter designed by Sato can remove most of the plate- and blob-like structures in images except for background pixels. Based on the vessel enhancement principle proposed by Sato, an improved 3D vessel enhancement algorithm is presented in this paper. Aiming to remove the unnecessary information, this algorithm takes the eigenvalues of Hessian matrix of background pixels into consideration. Clinical experiment is conducted on 3D carotid artery CTA data and cerebral vessel MRA data. Experimental results indicate that the background is greatly suppressed and vessel structures become more distinct with enhanced image contrast.

Key words: vessel enhancement, Hessian matrix, line filter, vessel segmentation