Creating 3D boundary element models of the heart from 2D projections

Introduction Individual 3D boundary element models can be used in solving inverse problems in electro- and magnetogardiographic measurements. Many other applications exist for individual 3D models in the medical field. In some cases, MR or CT images are not available or the cost of obtaining them is too high. Modalities producing 2D data, such as X-ray projections and ultrasound images, are more readily available. Therefore, it would be useful to be able to use these images for creating 3D models. One or two X-ray projections of an object are usually not enough to reconstruct a 3D object. Several X-ray projections of the same object from different angles are needed to create a good 3D approximation of the object. In CT, hundreds of projections are used. If only a few X-ray projections are used, some a priori knowledge can be incorporated to improve the reconstruction accuracy. For human anatomy, the prior knowledge, i.e. a representation of typical human anatomy, can be extracted, f