Kidney Dynamic Model Enrichment

Abstract: This thesis explores and explains a method using discrete curvature as a feature to find regions of vertices that can be classified as being likely to indicate the presence of an underlying tumor on a kidney surface mesh. Vertices are tagged based on curvature type and mathematical morphology is used to form regions on the mesh. The size and location of the tumor is approximated by fitting a sphere to this region. The method is intended to be employed in noninvasive radiotherapy with a dynamic soft tissue model. It could also provide an alternative to volumetric methods used to segment tumors. A validation is made using the images from which the kidney mesh was constructed, the tumor is visible as a comparison to the method result. The dynamic kidney model is validated using the Hausdorff distance and it is explained how this can be computed in an effective way using bounding volume hierarchies. Both the tumor finding method and the dynamic model show promising results since they lie within the limit used by practitioners during therapy.