An electrostatic deformable model for medical image segmentation.

A new deformable model, the charged fluid model (CFM), that uses the simulation of charged elements was used to segment medical images. Poisson's equation was used to guide the evolution of the CFM in two steps. In the first step, the elements of the charged fluid were distributed along the propagating interface until electrostatic equilibrium was achieved. In the second step, the propagating front of the charged fluid was deformed in response to the image gradient. The CFM provided sub-pixel precision, required only one parameter setting, and required no prior knowledge of the anatomy of the segmented object. The characteristics of the CFM were compared to existing deformable models using CT and MR images. The results indicate that the CFM is a promising approach for the segmentation of anatomic structures in a wide variety of medical images across different modalities.