1. A method for splitting a potential compound object, comprising: projecting three-dimensional image data indicative of the potential compound object along a first direction to generate a two-dimensional manifold projection from the three-dimensional image data and recording a correspondence between the three-dimensional image data and the two-dimensional manifold projection, wherein each pixel in the two-dimensional manifold projection represents a plurality of voxels in the three-dimensional image data that extend along the first direction; segmenting the two-dimensional manifold projection to generate a two-dimensional segmented manifold projection indicative of one or more sub-objects, the segmenting comprising eroding a portion of the two-dimensional manifold projection; and projecting the two-dimensional segmented manifold projection into three-dimensional image data indicative of the sub-objects utilizing the correspondence between the three-dimensional image data and the two-dimensional manifold projection.