Thread Subject: Deformable model

Hi there,

I am attempting to segment a series of images based on a
known approximate model.

I have:
a) Grayscale image (in this case, chest CT slice)
b) Template location (approximate center of vertebra)
c) Template (a circle)

I want to try and make my template deform to match the edges
of the actual vertebra (just the main, mostly circular, part).

My template would be a circle with, say, 10 atoms around the
perimeter, and I want to try to make them migrate to the
edges of the image (that I can try to find with some filtering).

Does anybody have some startup code of something similar
from which I can work from?
Has anybody made an implementation of "deformable m-reps" in
matlab?

Any help would be fantastic.

Cheers,
Sven.