Steps of UTE CEP thickness algorithm. (1) Algorithm loops through MRI slices, (2) contours and masks the endplates, (3) re-bins to increase resolution (top left image is original, top right image is re-binned), then thresholds the endplate and calculates CEP thickness values (red arrows) that are perpendicular to the tangent line (red dotted line) at each horizontal location. Panel 2 shows boxed region in panel 1, and panel 3 shows images for top endplate (dashed box in panel 2).