Evidential reconstruction of vessel trees from rotational angiograms

The 3 dimensional reconstruction of vessel trees from rotational digital subtraction angiogram (DSA) sequences has many potential clinical applications. Unfortunately, due to physiological and machine limitations, it is impossible to keep the vessels saturated with contrast material over the time period needed to acquire the DSA sequence using conventional equipment. Thus, it is important that any reconstruction method be able to account for the dynamics of the contrast bolus as it evolves over the DSA sequence. This report describes a method for reconstructing the geometry of the vessel tree from a rotational DSA sequence. The goal of the process is to estimate the likelihood that each voxel contains a vessel using the projection data. The Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence is used to combine information about location of the vessels from the different projections contained in the DSA sequence.