Automated segmentation of three-dimensional sagittal brain MR images by masking and restoration operations

In this paper, we present an automated segmentation algorithm for three-dimensional sagittal brain MR images. We start the segmentation from a midsagittal brain MR image utilizing some landmarks, anatomical information and a connectivity-based threshold segmentation algorithm. Since the brain in adjacent slices has a similar size and shape, we propose to use the segmentation result of the midsagittal brain MR image as a mask to guide segmentation of the adjacent slices in lateral direction. The masking operation may truncate some region of the brain. In order to restore the truncated region, we find the end points of the boundary of the truncated region by comparing the boundaries of the mask image and the masked image. Then, we restore the truncated region using the connectivity-based threshold segmentation algorithm with the end points. The resulting segmented image is then used as a mask for the subsequent slice.