X-ray or gamma ray systems or devices – Specific application – Absorption
Reexamination Certificate
2002-12-17
2004-06-01
Bruce, David V (Department: 2882)
X-ray or gamma ray systems or devices
Specific application
Absorption
C378S098200
Reexamination Certificate
active
06744849
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method, a program, and a storage medium for making easy the comparative reading of a plurality of images for medical use.
Up to now, a lot of radiation images such as X-ray images have been used in the diagnosis of disease etc., and for the purpose of obtaining these radiation images, what is called radiography, in which a fluorescent layer (fluorescent screen) is irradiated by X-rays transmitted through a radiographic object, the visible light which is produced by the irradiation is made to irradiate a film using silver halide in the same manner as a usual photographic film, and the irradiated film is developed, has been utilized very much for a long time.
On the other hand, in recent years, it has been put into practice to use a method of producing a radiation image without using a film coated with a silver halide layer, in which a radiation image is directly picked up as a digital signal from a radiation detector such as a stimulable phosphor detector or an FPD (Flat panel detector). Further, for the purpose of making a radiation image obtained by the above-mentioned method of producing a radiation image become an image suitable for diagnosis, it has been brought into practice to apply various kinds of image processing to digital image data.
Incidentally, as regards diagnosis based on the observation of the above-mentioned radiation image, the diagnosis is carried out, for example, with a plurality of films obtained for one and the same subject (radiation images of the chest region or the abdominal region taken once a year in the case of periodical health examination, radiation images for the observation in the course of recovery taken at the first medical examination and every several weeks in the case of a fracture of a bone, etc.) put side by side on a observation device to be compared with one another. However, in the case where the radiographs to be compared with one another are the combination of direct X-ray radiographs and indirect X-ray radiographs of one and the same subject, the combination of digital images read by a film scanner and digital images read from a stimulable phosphor detector, the combination of digital images read from a stimulable phosphor detector and digital images read through the conversion of X-ray energy into electric charge, or the like, caused by various factors, image characteristics such as the size of the whole of an image, the pixel size, the number of gray scales, the resolution, and the density (the luminance) become different between one image and another. For this reason, it sometimes occurred that the above-mentioned difference in the image characteristics became the obstacle of the exact comparative reading of images, which lowered the precision of diagnosis and the efficiency of diagnosis.
Therefore, for example, in the publication of the unexamined patent application H8-146540, it is disclosed a technology in which, by the correction of image data of a radiation image using supplementary image information concerning the radiographing conditions at the time of image data generation, the image characteristics are made equal between one and another of a plurality of images, and the difference in the image characteristics caused by the difference in the radiographing conditions etc. is corrected. Through this correction, it becomes possible to make the image characteristics equal between one and another of a plurality of images supposed to become the object of the comparative reading of images, and also it becomes possible to bring it out to the maximum, the effect of the extraction of diagnosis information based on the comparative reading of images and the correlation operation between images, and improve the precision of diagnosis and the efficiency of diagnosis.
However, as regards such a conventional image forming method, because the method is premised on the supplementary image information being attached to the radiographed image data, there have been cases where a radiation image taken in the past or a radiation image taken by an old-fashioned apparatus or an apparatus manufactured by another manufacturer had no supplementary image information attached or had deficient supplementary image information. For this reason, there has been a problem that correction processing for comparative reading of images could not be carried out, or the effect of correction processing was low even if correction could be made. As the result of this, there has been cases where a radiation image taken in the past or a radiation image taken by an apparatus of another model could not be utilized effectively, which lowered the precision of diagnosis and the efficiency of diagnosis.
It is an object of this invention to improve the precision of diagnosis and the efficiency of diagnosis by the correction of image data of an old radiation image taken under some other conditions or a radiation image taken by an apparatus of some other model to make comparative reading of images easy.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The structures to solve the above-mentioned problem are as follows:
(1) An image processing apparatus for processing a target radiation image generated by radiation transmitted through a radiographic object, characterized by comprising
an image data transforming means(device) for practicing image processing so as to make image characteristics of the target radiation images correspond to those of a radiation image for reference, on the basis of image characteristics obtained from said radiation image for reference determined beforehand.
In this specification, the term “image characteristics” is defined as those including, for example, the size of the whole of an image, the pixel size, the number of gray scales, the resolution, the density, the luminance, the gradation characteristic, the frequency response characteristic, etc.
(2) An image processing apparatus for processing a target radiation image generated by radiation transmitted through a radiographic object, characterized by comprising
an image characteristic obtaining means (device) for obtaining the image characteristics of a radiation image for reference and the image characteristics of the target radiation image, and
an image data transforming means (device) for practicing image processing of said target radiation image so as to make the image characteristics of said target radiation image correspond to the image characteristics of said radiation image for reference obtained by said image characteristic obtaining means.
Hence, by the image processing to make the image characteristics of a plurality of radiation images having different image characteristics correspond to those of a radiation image for reference, the difference in the image characteristics, for example, between radiation images taken under different radiographing conditions or radiation images subjected to different image processing methods can be dissolved, and it becomes possible to reproduce radiation images having their image characteristics made to correspond to one another.
(3) An image processing apparatus for processing a target radiation image generated by radiation transmitted through a radiographic object, characterized by comprising
a region recognizing means (device) for recognizing a specified region corresponding to a fixed structure of a radiographic object,
an image processing condition determining means (device) for obtaining the image characteristics through the analysis of the image signal of a specified region recognized by said region recognizing means, and determining the image processing conditions on the basis of said image characteristics, and
an image data transforming means (device) for practicing image processing of a radiation image on the basis of the image processing conditions determined by said image processing condition determining means,
said image processing condition determining means determining the image processing conditions on the basis of the image characteristics of a specified re
Bruce David V
Konica Corporation
Squire Sanders & Dempsey
LandOfFree
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