Analysis and synthesis of three-dimensional Gaussian Markov random fields

A method for synthesis of 3-D Gaussian Markov random fields (GMRF) is presented. Following this, a scheme for the estimation of the parameters of the model using the method of least squares (LS) and several fast techniques for segmentation of volumetric imaging are outlined. The superior performance of the 3-D analysis algorithms over 2-D processing slice by slice is shown using both synthetic textured images and real brain magnetic resonance (MR) images.