Feature Recognition and Evaluation of Volumetric Solid Using Boundary Pointers

This paper proposes a feature recognition and evaluation method for volumetric solids. Two boundary pointers on each voxel record solid boundaries, thus the extents of a solid along every voxel row can be easily obtained using the pointers. We develop feature recognition algorithms to extract the convex, concave, hole, strait and separate features on a volumetric solid by comparing the solid extents of neighboring voxel rows. Useful properties such as the thickness and width of a feature and the solid thickness of inter-features are evaluated. We also develop algorithms to maintain the consistencies of the boundary pointers during volume manipulations including the cut, tear, join and repostion on a volumetric solid, thus the feature recognitions and evaluations are effective for the manipulated solid. A fracture spine clinical example demonstrates the feasibility of this method in recognizing various features of the spinal bone and evaluating useful feature propertiers for the diagnosis and sugical planning of the fracture spine.