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Figure 1 Schematic drawing of automated contour detection of lumen-tissue and media-adventitia boundaries in a coronary segment. The processing technique is based on the concept that longitudinal contours facilitate the automated contour detection on the cross-sectional intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) images by defining the center and the range of the boundary-searching process. After digitalization of a motorized IVUS video recording, two longitudinal sections (X,Y) are processed. The tissue-lumen and media-adventitia boundaries in these longitudinal sections are automatically traced. Subsequently, this information is used as points to define regions-of-interest in the cross-sectional image to guide a second automatic contour detection process. Finally, the volumetric results are calculated from the contour data of the cross-sectional IVUS images.