A rapid 3D seed-filling algorithm based on scan slice

In this paper, a novel and rapid 3D seed-filling algorithm is proposed to extract or fill the object-connected 3D region. An improved 2D seed-filling algorithm, which extracts connected region in slice quickly and consumes fewer stack operations and less memory compared with the existing algorithms, is presented. The improved 2D algorithm is enclosed as a basic unit within the framework of the proposed 3D seed-filling algorithm, in order to reduce the complexity of direction of seeds search, and accelerate region search on adjacent slices. Finally, a parameter of scan range is defined to leap over invalid seeds, which reduces time consumption of the proposed algorithm further. In addition, experimental results demonstrate advantages of this algorithm including eliminating the redundancy of seeds search, repetition of stack operations and running with high efficiency. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.