The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 13, 2001
Filed:
Nov. 12, 1998
J. Daniel Bourland, Winston-Salem, NC (US);
Oing R. Wu, Westlake, OH (US);
Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC (US);
Abstract
The medial axis analysis of an object can be used to effectively guide and optimize radiosurgery treatment planning. In this method, a fast Euclidean medial axis transformation in three dimensions based on dynamic grassfire simulation and ridge extraction is presented. A ridge occurs when fire fronts collapse during grassfire propagation. Iso-contours(2D) or iso-surfaces(3D) can be obtained from dynamic grassfire transforms. They are locally smooth everywhere except at ridge locations. Ridges are detected by measuring local curvature at each point. This process is invariant under spatial translations and rotations. In radiosurgery treatment planning, optimal shots are only placed on the medial axis of the 3D target, which reduces optimization time and complexity.