Contour Based High Resolution 3D Mesh Construction Using HRCT and MRI Stacks

In this paper, we consider the problem of extracting shape contours from High Resolution Computed Tomography (HRCT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) stacks and using them to construct a three-dimensional mesh surface of the underlying geometry to a high level of detail. While many reconstruction algorithms adopt volumetric approaches and ray casting methods, we propose a novel algorithm for automatic segmentation of large volume sets, and a contour-based construction of a mesh representation that could be used in any rendering application or combined with larger meshes of anatomical parts. Several acceleration structures to reduce the complexity of the algorithm are also presented. Experimental results show that the proposed method provides a high level of detail and quality of rendering that may find useful applications in the field of visualization and graphics.