Title: An open-source GUI application for segment foetal ultrasound images

Authors: J.C. Dinis; T.F. Moraes; P.H.J. Amorim; O.H.J. Amorim; J.V.L. Silva; Rui B. Ruben

Addresses: Tridimensional Technology Division, Center for Information Technology Renato Archer, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ' Tridimensional Technology Division, Center for Information Technology Renato Archer, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ' Tridimensional Technology Division, Center for Information Technology Renato Archer, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ' Tridimensional Technology Division, Center for Information Technology Renato Archer, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ' Tridimensional Technology Division, Center for Information Technology Renato Archer, Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil ' CDRsp - ESTG - Polytechnic Institute of Leiria, ESTG Campus 2, Morro do Lena, Alto do Vieiro, Leiria 2411-901, Portugal

Abstract: There are several commercial software for medical image dataset segmentation. However, most of them are expensive and not user-friendly. With our proposal of a new open-source software with a simple and specific graphical user interface (GUI), it is easy to segment a foetus from a 3D ultrasound medical image dataset. The segmented portion of images can be converted into a stereolithography (STL) file format for 3D print technologies in order to obtain an accurate physical reproduction of the model segmented. Despite the large number of segmentation algorithms available, this new GUI has three specific possibilities (threshold, region growing and Chan-Vese) in order to keep it simple and efficient. For the same reason, the GUI has just three noise filters available in order to reduce speckle. Besides GUI simplicity, a good segmentation quality was achieved. The main purpose of our proposal is to segment foetal 3D ultrasound images and to make this task quick, easy and efficient.

Keywords: 3D ultrasound images; GUI; level set; ultrasound image segmentation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSISE.2017.087770

International Journal of Signal and Imaging Systems Engineering, 2017 Vol.10 No.5, pp.271 - 277

Received: 24 Jun 2016
Accepted: 26 Jun 2017
Published online: 01 Nov 2017 *

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