Fast Marching Minimal Path Extraction in ITK

Abstract

This paper describes the ITK implementation of a minimal path extraction framework based on Fast Marching arrival functions. The method requires the user to provide three inputs: 1. a meaningful speed function to generate an arrival function, 2. path information in the form of start, end, and way-points (which the path must pass near), and 3. an optimizer which steps along the resultant arrival function perpendicular to the Fast Marching front. A number of perspectives for choosing speed functions and optimizers are given, as well as examples using synthetic and real images.