Calculate centerline in 3d Structure

Hi all,

I have a 3D-matrix of a segmented (pathological) trachea. The 3D-matrix consists of multiple binary slices. Using the surface function I construct a 3D-visualization of the trachea:

I'm interested in the diameter of the trachea throughout its course in the, at this moment I use regionprops to calculate the diameter for each slice in the xy-plane. But as you can see the structure is curved, so this causes me to overestimate the diameter at the portions of the trachea with a lot of deviation. I think I need to calculate a 3d-centerline and then calculate the diameter perpendicular to this centerline but I don't know an efficient way to do this. Can anybody help me out? Thank you very much.

Answer 1

[zoey yang]

Actually I am working on MRA segmentation right now, mainly morphological measurement of basilar artery, posterior cerebral artery and vetebral artery. Because of the morphological variance in different people, I have to adjust several parameters for each person. But it is doable for small size patient. The main idea is to find the initial two slices, and then calculate their center of mass. Then you can connect these two points and find the slice which is perpendicular to this line. That means you can find the third slice and its center of mass. Then the 2nd and 3rd slices will be your new initial two slices. And so on. There are some limit parameters in this process. If you want to discuss in detail. You can contact with me, my email address: [e-mail]

[yux jia]

I also encountered such a problem. I reconstructed the lung airway by threshold segmentation, but I could not draw its center line, so I could not continue to calculate the radius, curvature and so on.

Do you have any good ideas for me?