METHOD AND APPARATUS TO GENERATE AND TRACK STANDARDIZED ANATOMICAL REGIONS AUTOMATICALLY

Methods and apparatus are disclosed that assist a user in tracking changes that occur in an anatomical region of one or more subjects based on three-dimensional images of the region captured at different times, such as before and after treatment. In exemplary implementations, a three-dimensional anatomical reference model derived from a population of relevance to the subjects is deformed to fit at least a baseline image of each of the subjects. The deformed model of each subject's baseline image is further deformed to fit a follow-up image of the subject's anatomical region. The deformed models thus generated are used to establish sparse correspondences between the images from which surrounding, denser correspondences between the images are additionally found.