1. A method for detecting endplates of vertebra, comprising the steps of: providing a filtered curvature map derived from filtering an intensity curvature map of a spine image in a direction relative to a spine axis; computing minimum and maximum curvature projections for each point along said spine axis; at a plurality of points on said spine axis, computing a score from said curvature projections, said score indicating the likelihood that the point is located on an endplate; and subjecting said score calculation to at least one of the following constraints: (1) that the angle between neighboring endplates not exceed a certain value; and (2) that the variation in height of vertebra of said spine image should satisfy a global model.