The University of Manchester is touting work of its researchers on developing automatic visual recognition of bones within X-ray images. While its value seems limited in easing the everyday work of clinical radiologists, the technology should have great value for large studies that include measurements of bone tissues.

Currently, the system is able to accurately trace out the hips, and the researchers are moving  to extend their work on bones of knees and hands, and one day perhaps the entire body.

Professor of Computer Vision, Tim Cootes said: “Mapping the outlines of bones from radiographs is hard work that takes time and skill. When researchers into conditions like arthritis are working with hundreds of images, it’s a very inefficient way of obtaining data… The idea of this software is to take the routine tasks out of human hands, so scientists can focus on drawing conclusions and developing treatments.”
source:Manchester University