Automatic contour estimation in fetal ultrasound images

This paper describes a new method for automatic estimation of the contours of the femur and of the cranial cross-section in fetal ultrasound images. Our approach can be described as a region-based maximum likelihood formulation of parametric deformable contours. This formulation provides robustness against the poor image quality, and allows simultaneous estimation of the contour parameters together with other parameters of the model. Implementation is carried out by a deterministic iterative algorithm with minimal user intervention. Experimental results testify for the very good performance of the approach.