# Spine Vertebra Instance Segmentation

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spine-vertebra-instance-segmentation/19423>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** segmentation, spine\
**Created:** [August 31, 2021, 4:49am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spine-vertebra-instance-segmentation/19423 "2021-08-31T04:49:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

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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:** [August 31, 2021, 6:33pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spine-vertebra-instance-segmentation/19423/2 "2021-08-31T18:33:29Z")

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You are using a very old Slicer version. Upgrade to at least the latest stable version. It might not solve application freezing, because that is most likely due to that you are running out of memory. You may need downsample your input image (but then you may lose some small details), increase virtual memory setting in your operating system (but then the software may slow down when your memory usage increases), or add more RAM to your computer (but it costs money and if you computer is old then it might not be feasible, and you may be better off buying a new computer).

Once you took care of the memory usage issue, you can segment the spine very quickly. You can either use classic methods, such as “Grow from seeds” effect with intensity masking followed by hole filling; or deep learning based methods, for example in MONAILabel. See more information in this post:

> [@Vertebra segmentation for volume masking](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/mask-volume-query/19143/4):
>
> What visualization mode is that you could not set up in Slicer? You can save the whole image as well. Yes, of course. You can have unlimited number of volumes, segmentations, segments in the scene and you can export all of them to files. Slicer has many tools for spine segmentation. For example, using classic tools, you can quickly segment the entire spinal column (each vertebra in a separate segment) using Grow from seeds effect, and filling internal holes using [this code snippet](https://gist.github.com/lassoan/0f45db8bae792ea19ccad36ceefbf52d). Ther…

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_[View the full topic](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/spine-vertebra-instance-segmentation/19423)._