Interpolation of missing part of human follicle border on ultrasonic B-mode image by iterative revision

In clinical infertility treatments. assessment of ovarian follicle growth b y ultrasonography is important. In order to measure the geometrical charact eristics of the human Follicle, such as the area of the cross-sectional ima ge and the volume inside the follicle, a method based on manual tracing of the follicle contour from the ultrasonic B mode image is widely used. Howev er, the observable ultrasonic B mode images are sometimes imperfect and som e Darts of the follicle border are missing due to the existence of the acou stic shadow. In this paper, a method that interpolates the missing Dart of the follicle border from the known part is proposed. This method uses a pri ori information of the follicle. which is usually known in actual cases: (I )the follicle's surface is so smooth that its border is assumed to be a smo oth closed curve: and (2) the position of the follicle's center is roughly predicted in advance in the ultrasonic B-mode image. In the proposed method , the missing Dart of the human follicle border is interpolated from the kn own part by applying an iterative revision so as to satisfy the smoothness condition of the Follicle. This method is also applied to three-dimensional image reconstruction of the human follicle.