Volume definition tools for medical imaging applications

The definition of structures and the extraction of organ's shape are essential parts of medical imaging applications. These might be applications like diagnostic imaging, image guided surgery or radiation therapy. The aim of the volume definition process is to delineate a specific shape of an organ on a digital image as accurate as possible. This can be done, either by manual user interaction or applying imaging processing techniques for the automatic detection of specific structures in the image. In this work we present a set of tools that are implemented on several computer based medical application. Central focus of this work, are techniques used to improve time and interaction needed for a user when defining one or more structures. These techniques involve interpolation methods for the manual volume definition and methods for the semiautomatic organ shape extraction.