Fig. 3

Graphical summary of a coarse segmentation step. Gray regions are not proceeded at this step, orange regions are the current layer and include the brown vertebrae region. White limits represent cluster boundaries. a Whole slice with the zoom-in region b in the dotted limits. c Result from the SLIC-3D clustering. d Possible outcome of the selection step with only the bone merging predicate (5). Blue accepted clusters, red rejected clusters. e Neighborhood search example for the two light-gray clusters f Expected outcome of the vertebral predicate (8)