3-D visualization of blood vessels and tumor using thin slice CT images

The lung area has very complicated structure, so it is difficult to understand the connection between tumor and blood vessels or bronchus. The authors describe a 3-D visualization method to understand the 3-D connection between bronchus, blood vessels and tumor in the lung area. The authors extract 3-D images of bronchus and blood vessels from thin slice CT images of the lung area. Then they use a 3-D thinning algorithm, and they extract the centerline structure of the blood vessels image, which is based for the classification process of the blood vessels. The authors also analyze a centerline structure of the blood vessels image for classification of two blood vessels. Finally, the authors visualize the 3-D bronchus, and classify blood vessels and tumor using volume rendering. These algorithms are applied to a patient's thin slice CT images, and the effectiveness of this method is shown.<<ETX>>