Region and Shape Prior Based Geodesic Active Contour and Application in Cardiac Valve Segmentation

Geodesic active contour is a useful image segmentation method. But it may fail to segment objects disturbed by complex noises. Prior knowledge on certain object is a powerful guidance in image segmentation. We represent region and shape prior of certain object in a form of speed field and incorporate it into Geodesic Active Contours. Region prior constrains the zero level set evolving in certain region and shape prior pulls the curve to the ideal contour. Applications in a large quantity of cardiac valve echocardiographic sequences have shown that the algorithm is a more accurate and efficient image segmentation method.