variations in pedicle shapes are learned by a training based method data compression techniques are used to both reduce the data dimension for a fast training and detection and to enable a multi scale search without multi scale training the detected pedicles can be used for automatic measurements and characterization of spine related ailments or analysis although this disclosure employs the illustrative example of pedicle analysis the methods and system described herein may be employed for tracking and defining other anatomical features structures or organs for example the detection method of the present invention may be employed for planning surgical procedures for setting fractured or broken bones or identifying special bone structures it should be understood that the elements shown in fig1 and 2 may be implemented in various forms of hardware software or combinations thereof preferably these elements are implemented on one or more appropriately programmed general purpose digital computers having a processor and memory and input output interfaces referring now in specific detail to the drawings in which like reference numerals identify similar or identical elements throughout the several views and initially to fig1 and 2 a pedicle detection method and system includes two phases a training phase fig1 and a detection phase fig2 in block 10 of the training phase a set of images such as spine images are selected and normalized to a particular size which is automatically adapted to the spine width of each image then pedicle images of typical pedicle shapes are collected to form a set of training data each pedicle image in the training.