1. A method of automatically characterizing a digitized image of a lateral view of a target vertebra, the target vertebra having a superior and an inferior cortical endplate, and the image of the target vertebra including lateral outlines of the cortical endplates, the method comprising: during a model building phase, building a computer model from a set of sample lateral images of pathological and non-pathological variations of vertebrae, the computer model including a set of parameters to represent variations in shape of the vertebrae; during a runtime phase, receiving a digitized image of a lateral view of at least one target vertebra of a subject; during the runtime phase, automatically estimating contours of the lateral outlines of the superior and the inferior cortical endplates of the at least one target vertebra of the image; during the runtime phase, varying at least one of the parameters of the computer model to determine a set of model parameters that represents a model shape that approximates at least the estimated contours of the lateral outlines of the cortical endplates of the image; during the runtime phase, automatically characterizing the target vertebra based on the set of model parameters that represents the model shape that approximates at least the estimated contours of the lateral outlines of the cortical endplates of the image; and outputting on a display device the characterization of the target vertebra.