THREE DIMENSIONAL RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CORONARY ARTERIAL TREE FROM BIPLANE CORONARY ARTERIOGRAMS.

In order to develop a computerized image processing system for the three dimensional reconstruction of coronary arterial trees from simultaneous biplane coronary arteriograms (CAG), new algorithms of the corresponding problem of coronary artery have been developed. Use of an 'epipolar line' gave the candidates for corresponding points of each branching point on an image. 'Epipolar line' was defined as a projection of a ray (from a camera center to a point on an image) onto another image plane. After obtaining the candidates for corresponding points, false corresponding points were discriminated by use of the knowledge of the three dimensional configuration of a heart. There is a region where arteries cannot exist, such as the interior part of a heart. We considered such candidates which were within the above-mentioned prohibited region as false. The experimental results suggest that these algorithms are very effective in searching for the corresponding point from complicated images such as coronary arteriograms.