A work-efficient GPU algorithm for level set segmentation

We present a novel GPU level set segmentation algorithm that is both work-efficient and step-efficient. Our algorithm has O(log n) step-complexity, in contrast to previous GPU algorithms [Lefohn et al. 2004; Jeong et al. 2009] which have O(n) step-complexity. Moreover our algorithm limits the active computational domain to the minimal set of changing elements by examining both the temporal and spatial derivatives of the level set field. We apply our algorithm to 3D medical images (Figure 1) and demonstrate that our algorithm reduces the total number of processed level set field elements by 16× and is 14× faster than previous GPU algorithms with no reduction in segmentation accuracy.