A simple method for fitting sphere-like surfaces.

In this paper we present a new and simple method for fitting a sphere-like surface to a set of data points in 3-space. In comparison to the standard method that involves using spherical harmonics, this method is conceptually simpler and computationally less complex and intensive, especially when used to address problems in which data is sparse or nonuniform.

Modeling prostate anatomy from multiple view TRUS images for image-guided HIFU therapy.

Current planning methods for transrectal high-intensity focused ultrasound treatment of prostate cancer rely on manually defining treatment regions in 15-20 sector transrectal ultrasound (TRUS) images of the prostate. Although effective, it is desirable to reduce user interaction time by identifying functionally related anatomic structures (segmenting), then automatically laying out treatment sites using these structures as a guide. Accordingly, a method has been developed to effectively generate solid three-dimensional (3-D) models of the prostate, urethra, and rectal wall from boundary trace data.