A method for automatically estimating a measure of a nodule includes providing sliced image volume data comprising at least one marked position of the nodule, extracting a sub-volume from the sliced image volume data that includes the marked position, performing a figure-ground separation to determine a solid foreground of the sub-volume and a non-solid foreground of the sub-volume, determining a seed point corresponding to the nodule from each of the solid foreground and the non-solid foreground, selecting one of the seed point of the solid foreground or the seed point of the non-solid foreground, determining whether the selected seed point is solitary or non-solitary and performing region growing for non-solitary selected seed point, determining a segmentation of the selected seed point, estimating the measure of the nodule corresponding to the segmentation, and outputting the segmentation and an estimate of the measure of the nodule.