one seed point within the tubular structure fitting an initial cylinder into the tubular structure at the seed point adding cylinder segments to the initial cylinder in forward and backward directions within the three dimensional image of the tubular structure by tracking the cylinder model over the tubular structure modeling each cylinder segment using parameters to account for a three dimensional orientation a radius a length and a curvature describing an intensity image of the tubular structure using a second model to represent an edge and intensity distribution of the tubular structure fitting the parameters as the cylinder segment is added to the intensity image and outputting cylinder segments as a segmentation of the tube application_number US 2600208 A description according to an embodiment of the present disclosure a system and method for 3d segmentation in mr colonography segments the colon in 3d mr scans of the human abdomen results of the segmentation may facilitate polyp detection and classification tasks for both bright and dark lumen cases the segmentation is model based to overcome limitations in imaging dark lumen areas the model is tube shaped to direct the segmentation and tracking voxel intensities and intensity gradients in the local region are the main image forces considered it should be understood that the methods described herein are applicable to applications other than colonography and may be used for other tube like structures.