APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR AUTOMATICALLY REGISTERING LANDMARKS IN THREE-DIMENSIONAL MEDICAL IMAGE

The present invention is directed to a medical device, and in particular, to a method and device for automatic registration of anatomic points (landmarks) on medical images, wherein the method of automatically registering landmarks in 3D medical images is used, providing obtaining a 3D medical image, determining a set of search points, extracting features of the search points, forming a set of candidates on demanded landmarks, filtering candidates, and outputting final positions of demanded landmarks. The determining of search points is performed by setting a grid of search points on a 3D image by using a statistical atlas, the statistical atlas is attached to a bounding box corresponding to an investigated portion of a body inside a 3D image, the extracting of features of the search points is performed by selecting a context around each point and applying multilayered feature extraction algorithm thereto, the forming of a set of candidates is performed by computing a quality measure for each search point and for each type of landmarks, using a corresponding output of feature extraction algorithm, and the filtering of candidates is performed by using the statistical atlas and pre-computed thresholds. Herein, final positions are output by sorting all candidates, remained after filtering, within limits of each type of required landmarks according to a quality measure, and by outputting candidates with largest values of a quality measure or demanded number of candidates with largest values of a quality measure. An apparatus and data carrier, based on embodiment of the claimed method, are also part of the present invention.