A detailed description of up-to-date methods used for computer
processing and interpretation of medical images is given. The scope of
the book include images acquisition, storing with compression,
processing, analysis, recognition and also its automatic understanding
In introduction general overview of the computer vision methods designed
for medical images is presented. Next sources of medical images are
presented with their general characteristics. Both traditional (like
X-ray) and very modern (like PET) sources of medical images are
presented. The main emphasis is placed on such properties of medical
images given by particular medical imaging methods which are important
form the point of view of its computer processing, analysis and
recognition. The consecutive parts of the book describe compression and
processing methods, including many methods developed by authors
especially for medical images. After parts describing analysis and
recognition of medical images come most important part, in which the new
method of automatic understanding of medical images is given. This new
method of image interpretation, described in previous works of the same
authors with applications for simple 2D images now is generalized for 3D
images and for complex medical images with many objects observed and
with complicated relations between these objects.