Cardiac MR image segmentation using CHNN and level set method

Although cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can provide high spatial resolution image, the area gray level inhomogenization, weak boundary and artifact often can be found in MR images. So, the MR images segmentation using the gradient-based methods is poor in quality and efficiency. An algorithm, based on the competitive hopfield neural network (CHNN) and the curve propagation, is proposed for cardiac MR images segmentation in this paper. The algorithm is composed of two phases. In first phase, a CHNN is used to classify the image objects, and to make gray level homogenization and to recognize weak boundaries in objects. In second phase, based on the classified results, the level set velocity function is created and the object boundaries are extracted with the curve propagation algorithm of the narrow band-based level set. The test results are promising and encouraging.