Preprocessing methods of this invention remove data relating to cavities
of the heart, and improve density mix of parts left therein during CT imaging,
so as to allow coronary arteries to be more accurately tracked with conventional
tracking algorithms than currently possible. An embodiment comprises: obtaining
an original CT voxel dataset comprising a plurality of voxels; creating a heart
voxel dataset from the original voxel dataset comprising only voxels belonging
to the heart; creating a heart minus cavities voxel dataset by removing voxels
belonging to the left and right ventricles, the left and right atriums, and the
aorta from the heart voxel dataset; enhancing predetermined voxels in the heart
minus cavities voxel dataset to create an enhanced heart minus cavities voxel dataset;
and mixing an intensity of the original CT voxel dataset with an intensity of the
enhanced heart minus cavities voxel dataset to create the pre-processed voxel dataset.
