Table 1.

Detailed steps of the qualified rendering image selection algorithm

Input: Elastic thyroid video Output: Vessel image
Step 1: Extract rendering region and gray scale region from the elastic thyroid video
Step 2: Speckle noise reduction in the gray scale region
Step 3: Gray scale image segmentation based on NGC algorithm  a. Map thyroid ultrasound image into NS  b. Apply indeterminacy filtering on the gray scale image  c. Define the node weights in a graph  d. Segment the graph using a maximum-flow algorithm
Step 4: Identify the anatomic regions in thyroid image
Step 5: Extract the rendering colors on these anatomic regions
Step 6: Find the frames which satisfy the rendering qualified criteria