Nowadays, it is possible to acquire volume representations of
the brain which show a clear distinction in gray values between
tissue and vessel voxels. In a previous paper a new tool, the
self-adjusting probe, was introduced. This tool makes semi-automatic shape
extraction, such as measuring a vessel's cross-sectional area, possible.
Currently, the self-adjusting probe extracts shapes from a 3D
triangle surface model. However, if two vessel branches are
close together, it is possible that surface vertices of the neighbor
vessel are included in the set of selected surface vertices which
are used to extract the local shape of the vessel investigated.
These erroneously included surface vertices deteriorate the
accuracy of the estimated shape.
Therefore, a method has been developed to give the vessel vertices a unique
label per vessel branch. Now, surface vertices of neighbor vessel branches
can be excluded because their label is different.
