Automatic 3D reconstruction of the beating left ventricle using transthoracic echographic images

In this paper we present an algorithm for 3D reconstruction of the beating left ventricle from echocardiographic image sequences. We especially stress on the automatic tracking process of the ventricular wall. Our algorithm is based on a combination of active shape modeling (snakes) and methods for computing the ventricular wall motion between two frames. We also investigate anisotropic diffusion filtering methods to improve the ventricle detection. Results are presented which prove the efficiency of our method.