The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Automatic Lumbar Vertebrae Registration Using the Hough Transform in Digital Videofluoroscopy

Automatic Lumbar Vertebrae Registration Using the Hough Transform in Digital Videofluoroscopy
Automatic Lumbar Vertebrae Registration Using the Hough Transform in Digital Videofluoroscopy
Low back pain is a significant problem in the industrialised world and its associated cost is enormous. Diagnosis of the underlying causes can be extremely difficult. Since mechanical factors often play an important role, it can be helpful in studying the motion of the spine. Traditional radiographic methods of obtaining spine images suffer from high radiation dosage and can only yield a limited number of images. Thus, digital videofluoroscopy was introduced. This can provide sequences with many image frames, but the images obtained often suffer due to noise and very low radiation dosage. Thus determining vertebrae position within the image sequence presents a considerable challenge. There have been many studies aimed at vertebral image extraction, varying from manually locating the vertebral landmarks to template matching. However, the former method poses problems of repeatability that can cause errors in kinematic analysis, while the latter cannot cope with occlusion and out-of-plane motion. In this paper, we show how the Hough transform can be used to solve this problem. Here, Fourier descriptors were used to describe the vertebral body shape and were incorporated within our Hough transform algorithm from which we can obtain affine transform parameters, i.e. scale, rotation and center position. The method has been applied to images of a calibration model and to images from a sequence of a moving human lumbar spine. The results show promise and potential for object extraction from poor quality images and that models of spinal movement can indeed be derived for clinical application.
Zheng, Yalin
cf121a1d-9a54-4d7c-aeea-6354fe19d880
Nixon, Mark S
2b5b9804-5a81-462a-82e6-92ee5fa74e12
Allen, Robert
61929c7d-45ee-4a1d-ba45-164420621020
Zheng, Yalin
cf121a1d-9a54-4d7c-aeea-6354fe19d880
Nixon, Mark S
2b5b9804-5a81-462a-82e6-92ee5fa74e12
Allen, Robert
61929c7d-45ee-4a1d-ba45-164420621020

Zheng, Yalin, Nixon, Mark S and Allen, Robert (2001) Automatic Lumbar Vertebrae Registration Using the Hough Transform in Digital Videofluoroscopy. 7th Annual Scientific Conference of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Poster)

Abstract

Low back pain is a significant problem in the industrialised world and its associated cost is enormous. Diagnosis of the underlying causes can be extremely difficult. Since mechanical factors often play an important role, it can be helpful in studying the motion of the spine. Traditional radiographic methods of obtaining spine images suffer from high radiation dosage and can only yield a limited number of images. Thus, digital videofluoroscopy was introduced. This can provide sequences with many image frames, but the images obtained often suffer due to noise and very low radiation dosage. Thus determining vertebrae position within the image sequence presents a considerable challenge. There have been many studies aimed at vertebral image extraction, varying from manually locating the vertebral landmarks to template matching. However, the former method poses problems of repeatability that can cause errors in kinematic analysis, while the latter cannot cope with occlusion and out-of-plane motion. In this paper, we show how the Hough transform can be used to solve this problem. Here, Fourier descriptors were used to describe the vertebral body shape and were incorporated within our Hough transform algorithm from which we can obtain affine transform parameters, i.e. scale, rotation and center position. The method has been applied to images of a calibration model and to images from a sequence of a moving human lumbar spine. The results show promise and potential for object extraction from poor quality images and that models of spinal movement can indeed be derived for clinical application.

This record has no associated files available for download.

More information

Published date: September 2001
Additional Information: Organisation: Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine
Venue - Dates: 7th Annual Scientific Conference of the Institute of Physics and Engineering in Medicine, 2001-08-31
Organisations: Southampton Wireless Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 255987
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/255987
PURE UUID: cfdc4bc4-c49c-443e-9fe7-3cc93720a2fe
ORCID for Mark S Nixon: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-9174-5934

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 20 Nov 2003
Last modified: 11 Dec 2021 02:38

Export record

Contributors

Author: Yalin Zheng
Author: Mark S Nixon ORCID iD
Author: Robert Allen

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×