# Blank out surrounding areas outside of segmented regions of interests in volume

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/blank-out-surrounding-areas-outside-of-segmented-regions-of-interests-in-volume/5566>\
**Category:** Feature requests\
**Created:** [January 29, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/blank-out-surrounding-areas-outside-of-segmented-regions-of-interests-in-volume/5566 "2019-01-29T17:22:03Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xmc2018\_ucl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f4b2a3/32.png) [@xmc2018\_ucl](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/xmc2018_ucl)\
**Post date:** [January 29, 2019, 5:22pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/blank-out-surrounding-areas-outside-of-segmented-regions-of-interests-in-volume/5566/1 "2019-01-29T17:22:03Z")

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Hi

I am new to Slicer and I want to do multi-stages segmentation: 1. segment only lungs from CT images; 2. segment only vessels from the segmented lungs

I am wondering if I can load segmented lung mask (using chest imaging platform) and then only segment inside of the regions of the masks (using VMTK)? I tried VMTK first, but then it segments not only vessels but also a lot of surrounding areas so I was thinking if I do it in multi-stage, it might achieve better results (lung first, then inside of lung, vessels)

Many thanks

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [January 30, 2019, 12:51am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/blank-out-surrounding-areas-outside-of-segmented-regions-of-interests-in-volume/5566/2 "2019-01-30T00:51:41Z")

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You can use masking settings in the Segment Editor to allow painting only inside a selected segment.

You can also blank out areas outside/inside segmented regions using Mask volume effect (available after you install SegmentEditorExtraEffects extension) as shown in this video:

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [March 21, 2023, 3:04am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/blank-out-surrounding-areas-outside-of-segmented-regions-of-interests-in-volume/5566/3 "2023-03-21T03:04:55Z")

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