Graphical user interface system for 3D medical image analysis

The utility of 3D medical images has been limited by difficulties in analyzing and making measurements on the images. To tackle these problems, interactive workstation-based systems have been devised for visualizing and quantitating structures in 3D images. Unfortunately, these systems generally demand time-consuming, subjective, error-prone human interaction. To reduce the disadvantages of purely interactive techniques, some recent efforts have combined automatic image analysis with human interaction. These efforts demonstrate that for complex 3D medical applications, a judicious combination of human interaction and automatic computer-based processing is essential. We describe a system called INTERSEG (INTERactive SEGmentation) that combines human interaction and automatic processing for 3D radiological image analysis. INTERSEG is a graphical user interface system that can be used to: (1) construct interactively defined region cues; (2) invoke automatic image analysis; and (3) peruse/visualize analyzed images. The cues, which are easy to construct, convey problem-specific information and define the image-analysis task. The paper focuses on INTERSEG's capabilities for human interaction and visualization.