Patient Imaging and Image Processing

Carotid duplex ultrasound data sets were obtained from 2 volunteers. These 3D ultrasound data sets included gray-scale (B-mode) images of the carotid artery and its surrounding structures that were used to create a 3D surface model of the carotid artery lumen. In summary, an ultrasound transducer with an attached tracking device (Flock of Birds, Ascension Technology Corp, Burlington, Vermont) was used to acquire closely spaced B-mode images of the relevant vascular structures. These images were reformatted into a regular 3D grid using a volume reconstruction algorithm.^8,9 A 3D surface model of the blood vessel was then generated from traced borders of the vessel lumen.^10,11