External Force for Deformable Models in Medical Image Segmentation: A Survey

Many image segmentation techniques are available in the literature. Among the available techniques, parametric deformable models play an important role in many medical imaging applications. These models have been proved to be effective in segmenting an anatomic structure using constraints derived from the image data along with a prior knowledge about the location, size and shape of these structures. These models also support highly intuitive interaction mechanisms, which helps medical practitioners to bring their expertise to bear on the model-based image interpretation task. In this paper, a review of nineteen different external forces for the parametric deformable model applied to the medical image segmentation is presented. The main purpose of survey is to identify and discuss each category with its principle, mathematical model, advantages, disadvantages and applications to medical image analysis.