Automatic segmentation of the lungs using multiple active contours and outlier model.

This paper presents a method for the automatic segmentation of the lungs in X-ray computed tomography (CT) images. The proposed technique is based on the use of multiple active contour models (ACMs) for the simultaneous segmentation of both lungs and outlier detection. The technique starts by grey-level thresholding of the images followed by edge detection. Then the edge points are organized in strokes and a set of weights summing to one is assigned to each stroke. These weights represent the soft assignment of the stroke to each of the ACMs and depend on the distance between the stroke points and the ACM units, on gradient direction information and also on the stroke size. Both the weights and the ACMs energy minimization are computed using the generalized expectation-maximization (EM) algorithm. Initialization of the ACM's is fully automatic. Experimental results show the effectiveness of the proposed technique.