ITK  4.6.0
Insight Segmentation and Registration Toolkit
Filtering/SurfaceExtraction.cxx
/*=========================================================================
*
* Copyright Insight Software Consortium
*
* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
* You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0.txt
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
* limitations under the License.
*
*=========================================================================*/
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// Surface extraction has attracted continuous interest since the early days
// of image analysis, in particular on the context of medical applications.
// Although it is commonly associated with image segmentation, surface
// extraction is not in itself a segmentation technique, instead it is a
// transformation that changes the way a segmentation is represented. In its
// most common form, isosurface extraction is the equivalent of image
// thresholding followed by surface extraction.
//
// Probably the most widely known method of surface extraction is the
// \emph{Marching Cubes} algorithm~\cite{MarchingCubes}. Although it has been
// followed by a number of variants~\cite{VTKBook}, Marching Cubes has become
// an icon on medical image processing. The following example illustrates how
// to perform surface extraction in ITK using an algorithm similar to Marching
// Cubes~\footnote{Note that the Marching Cubes algorithm is covered by a
// patent that expired on June 5th 2005.}.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// The representation of unstructured data in ITK is done with
// the \doxygen{Mesh}. This class allows to represent N-Dimensional grids of
// varied topology. It is natural for the filter that extracts surfaces from an
// Image to produce a Mesh as its output.
//
// We initiate our example by including the header files of the surface
// extraction filter, the image and the Mesh.
//
// \index{Marching Cubes}
// \index{Isosurface extraction!Mesh}
// \index{BinaryMask3DMeshSource!Header}
// \index{Mesh!Isosurface extraction}
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
#include "itkImage.h"
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
int main(int argc, char * argv[] )
{
if( argc < 3 )
{
std::cerr << "Usage: IsoSurfaceExtraction inputImageFile objectValue " << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// We define then the pixel type and dimension of the image from which we are
// going to extract the surface.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
const unsigned int Dimension = 3;
typedef unsigned char PixelType;
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// With the same image type we instantiate the type of an ImageFileReader and
// construct one with the purpose of reading in the input image.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
ReaderType::Pointer reader = ReaderType::New();
reader->SetFileName( argv[1] );
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
try
{
reader->Update();
}
catch( itk::ExceptionObject & exp )
{
std::cerr << "Exception thrown while reading the input file " << std::endl;
std::cerr << exp << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// The type of the \doxygen{Mesh} is instantiated by specifying the type to be
// associated with the pixel value of the Mesh nodes. This particular pixel
// type happens to be irrelevant for the purpose of extracting the surface.
//
// \index{BinaryMask3DMeshSource!Instantiation}
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
typedef itk::Mesh<double> MeshType;
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// Having declared the Image and Mesh types we can now instantiate the
// surface extraction filter, and construct one by invoking its \code{New()}
// method.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
MeshSourceType::Pointer meshSource = MeshSourceType::New();
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// In this particular example, the pixel value to be associated to the object
// to be extracted is read from the command line arguments and it is passed to
// the filter by using the \code{SetObjectValue()} method. Note that this is
// different from the traditional isovalue used in the Marching Cubes
// algorithm. In the case of the \code{BinaryMask3DMeshSource} filter, the
// object values defines the membership of pixels to the object from which the
// surface will be extracted. In other words, the surface will be surrounding
// all pixels with value equal to the ObjectValue parameter.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
const PixelType objectValue = static_cast<PixelType>( atof( argv[2] ) );
meshSource->SetObjectValue( objectValue );
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// The input to the surface extraction filter is taken from the output of
// the image reader.
//
// \index{BinaryMask3DMeshSource!SetInput}
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
meshSource->SetInput( reader->GetOutput() );
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// Finally we trigger the execution of the pipeline by invoking the
// \code{Update()} method. Given that the pipeline may throw an exception this
// call must be place inside a \code{try/catch} block.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
try
{
meshSource->Update();
}
catch( itk::ExceptionObject & exp )
{
std::cerr << "Exception thrown during Update() " << std::endl;
std::cerr << exp << std::endl;
return EXIT_FAILURE;
}
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// As a way of taking a look at the output Mesh we print out here its number of
// Nodes and Cells.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
// Software Guide : BeginCodeSnippet
std::cout << "Nodes = " << meshSource->GetNumberOfNodes() << std::endl;
std::cout << "Cells = " << meshSource->GetNumberOfCells() << std::endl;
// Software Guide : EndCodeSnippet
// Software Guide : BeginLatex
//
// This resulting Mesh could be used as input for a deformable model
// segmentation algorithm, or it could be converted to a format suitable for
// visualization in an interactive application.
//
// Software Guide : EndLatex
return EXIT_SUCCESS;
}