Dynamic 3D modelling of the human left ventricle

Visualization and quantification of cardiac function is important in diagnosing and management of heart diseases. As quantitative analysis performed on the images is crucial to understand the heart mechanics, an accurate diagnosis of heart conditions can be done if clear visualization of ventricular volume, mass and function are obtained from echo-cardiograph images. This paper presents a technique to develop a dynamic three dimensional model of the left ventricle of the human heart to illustrate both the shape and motion of the ventricle along a cardiac cycle. The proposed methodology includes a multistage approach that involves a pipeline of image processing routines such as filtering, contrast stretching and binary morphology to isolate heart tissues. Subsequently, cubic spline curves are used to generate a smooth surface of the heart muscle using a set of control points extracted from the locations of boundaries of the heart muscle. A complete pulse included 40 images and it takes an average of 16.0665 seconds for the model to deform over a pulse.