Boundary Detection via Dynamic Programming

In this chapter we develop a technique for finding the boundaries of a candidate nodule. The technique is based on Montanari’s work (1970) on the extraction of curves with dynamic programming. We choose this approach because a) we can specify an intuitively satisfying mathematical objective function for the boundary which can be optimized, b) in a sense the solution is globally optimal, and c) the procedure is relatively insensitive to the noisy conditions encountered in the digitized radiograph.