A system and method is provided for using a first vascular image, or more
particularly a plurality of control points located thereon, to identify a
border on a second vascular image. Embodiments of the present invention
operate in accordance with an intra-vascular ultrasound (IVUS) device and
a computing device electrically connected thereto. Specifically, in one
embodiment of the present invention, an IVUS console is electrically
connected to a computing device and adapted to acquire IVUS data. The
IVUS data (or multiple sets thereof) is then provided to (or acquired by)
the computing device. In one embodiment of the present invention, the
computing device includes a plurality of applications operating
thereon--i.e., a border-detection application, an extrapolation
application, and an active-contour application. These applications are
used to (i) identify a border and control points on a first IVUS image
(i.e., any IVUS image), (ii) extrapolate the control points to a second
IVUS image (i.e., another IVUS image), (iii) identify a border on the
second IVUS image, and (iv) adjust the border on the second IVUS image in
accordance with at least one factor. In one embodiment of the present
invention, the at least one factor is selected from a group consisting of
gradient factor, continuity factor, and curvature factor.