A method for determining a structure in volumetric data includes determining an anisotropic scale-space for a local region around a given spatial local maximum, determining L-normalized scale-space derivatives in the anisotropic scale-space, and determining the presence of noise in the volumetric data and upon determining noise in the volumetric data, determining the structure by a most-stable-over-scales determination, and upon determining noise below a desirable level, determining the structure by one of the most-stable-over-scales determination and a maximum-over-scales determination.