Cutting a 3-D object from its 3-D image

For certain clinical applications, object manipulation such as cutting or slicing an anatomical structure will add new useful information for physicians (especially surgeons). Performing an object manipulation from a set of axial images is not practical because it is time consuming, difficult to achieve a cut based on the structure of the object, and difficult to keep the slice-to-slice consistency of the cutting. To overcome these difficulties, we present a scheme to cut and slice a three dimensional object from its three dimensional image. The proposed scheme is easy to use and is very flexible so that the surface along which the object is cut can be selected to adapt to the complex shape of the three dimensional object. The cutting surface is not restricted to a planar surface and is defined by drawing curves on a three dimensional view of the object. The user interaction part of the cutting scheme will be presented together with the algorithm to form the cutting surface. A brief discussion of the potential clinical applications is presented to illustrate the usefulness of this nonplanar cutting procedure.