Automated three-dimensional vascular reproduction from stereoangiograms

In clinical practice, stereoangiograms are used to obtain a qualitative impression of the relative positions of vessels in three dimensions. A method is presented which generate reproductions of the three-dimensional vascular tree for any chosen viewing angle using vessel information determined automatically by tracking and correlating opacified vessels in stereoangiograms. At each tracking point, the local vessel size and contrast are determined, and the three-dimensional centerline position is calculated using corresponding point in the image pair and the stereoscopic imaging geometry.