Finding the rib cage in chest radiographs

Abstract--We describe a system of computer algorithms that finds the rib cage in chest radiographs. Our algorithms link the dorsal and ventral portions of the rib contours such that each rib is identified and can be displayed individually. In a preliminary application of our system to five adult chest radiographs, about 90)o of the ribs were found, and ca. 15 % of the computed rib contours were false. Pattern recognition Heuristic search Image enhancement Edge detection Contour follow-ing Representation Search strateg