Robust b-spline snakes for ultrasound image segmentation

Snake-based methods are commonly used to segment ultrasound images. However, their performance is generally limited because of the specific properties of this kind of images. This paper addresses the sensitivity of parametric active contours to speckle within ultrasound images. We propose a new B-spline snake model, founded on two original external energies specifically tailored for the segmentation of biomedical speckled images. First, the curve is attracted from a wide capture range with an expansion energy that facilitates the snake initialization. Then, it is accurately fitted on the region boundaries with an energy that allows precise positioning of the curve along edges in ultrasound images. A mutual inhibition function is designed to control the two energies. Results on real ultrasound images are presented and quantitatively compared to the boundaries manually outlined by experts. Our method improves the precision of heart cavities segmentation.