DETECTION OF VERTEBRA ENDPLATES IN DIGITAL RADIOGRAPHY

A fully automatic system and method for detecting endplates of vertebra in radiographic images, in accordance with the present invention, provides an intensity curvature map of an image of a spine and filters the intensity curvature map in a direction relative to a spine axis. At a plurality of points of the spine axis, maximum and minimum scores are computed by summing curvatures of the intensity curvature map and by summing directional intensity gradients along line segments to determine if an endplate passes through the points. Endplate positions are found by comparing relative positions of plotted values corresponding to the maximum and minimum scores.