# Vmtk centerlines/network metrics

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/vmtk-centerlines-network-metrics/40362>\
**Category:** Support\
**Tags:** vmtk, vmtk-centerline\
**Created:** [November 24, 2024, 11:59pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/vmtk-centerlines-network-metrics/40362 "2024-11-24T23:59:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![LB95](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lb95/32/78637_2.png) [@LB95](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/LB95)\
**Post date:** [November 24, 2024, 11:59pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/vmtk-centerlines-network-metrics/40362/1 "2024-11-24T23:59:17Z")

</div>

Hi,

I’ve been doing a lot of reading on these forums and managed to piece together a lot, however I’m still having some difficulty solving my problem. My aim is to extract the centerline of a vessel tree in order to compute various metrics for each branch/section of the tree ( e,g, min/max/avg radius/curvature/torsion/tortuosity, volume/surface area of branch etc).

In most cases, the auto end points are working well (and made better from this [How to obtain the complete center lines using VMTK? - #11 by perecanals](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-obtain-the-complete-center-lines-using-vmtk/14068/11) ). In most cases however, the centerline computation is really poor, even with doing oversampling from here ([How to obtain the complete center lines using VMTK? - #4 by lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/how-to-obtain-the-complete-center-lines-using-vmtk/14068/4)). FWIW I know from postprocessing that my segmentation method is completely connected. see img for centerlines (in light green):

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/4/b/4b8ac9fec1885348e415daf4880cd5ed020589b9.jpeg)

Regardless, in most cases the network calculation is good (see below for another example), so I am not too bothered about centerlines provided the network can be used to calculate the metrics I need. My question is is this possible? Would I be missing out on anything by not using centerlines?  
I’m sorry if I’m missing something, maybe there is something within the vmtk package that already does this that i’m missing?

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/slicer/original/3X/d/9/d9240ab47525ed700ff3778cc81c8b0c1f3b15a0.jpeg)