Surgery – Diagnostic testing – Detecting nuclear – electromagnetic – or ultrasonic radiation
Reexamination Certificate
2000-01-27
2001-12-11
Lateef, Marvin M. (Department: 3737)
Surgery
Diagnostic testing
Detecting nuclear, electromagnetic, or ultrasonic radiation
C600S443000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06328693
ABSTRACT:
BCACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a method and device of synthesizing a panorama image from motion images obtained by ultrasound waves and, more particularly, to a method and device of obtaining an image (hereinbelow, called a panorama image) by synthesis of a sequence of consecutive frame images which are captured in a position by a manual ultrasound probe operation, which is especially suitable for an ultrasound diagnosis and a device used for the ultrasound diagnosis.
In recent years, a diagnosis using ultrasound waves is becoming widespread. According to the ultrasound diagnosing device, a probe is manipulated on the surface of a subject such as human body while generating ultrasound waves of 2 to 10 MHz that travel into the body, the ultrasound waves reflected by the surface of internal organs or the like are received, the received ultrasound waves are subjected to signal processing, and slice images of the organs or the like of the patient are real-time displayed. The diagnosis using ultrasound waves does not give pain or adverse influence on the patient and is safer as compared with a surgical operation or a diagnosis using X-ray. Consequently, it is important in diagnosing a pregnant woman and an infant. Representative measurement examples of the ultrasound diagnosing device are growth measurement of an unborn baby and circulatory organ measurement. Since their measurement regions are larger than the range in which a slice image can be displayed by using the probe at once, the function of obtaining a panorama image from the slice images and displaying the panorama image while scanning the subject with the probe is necessary. Although only a two-dimensional cross sectional image of an extremely narrow range can be obtained by one capturing operation, when the probe is attached to a mechanical scanner having a position sensor and slice images are stored while shifting the scanner across the human body, a panorama image of the whole can be produced from all of the stored slice images when the manipulation of the probe on the subject such as human body is finished.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, however, difficult to accurately shift the probe attached to the mechanical scanner along a curved region of the human body such as the calf or the thyroid gland. Since the ultrasound waves are transmitted into the body through a layer of a jelly material applied on the skin, the probe has to be held so as to be in direct contact with the skin of the human body. A high-degree operating technique is therefore necessary to accurately scan a part having a curved surface. It is desirable to realize a device capable of synthesizing a panorama image by connecting cross sectional images over a wide range in a real time manner and displaying the panorama image while manually scanning the surface of the human body with the probe. In order to synthesize images without using a position sensor or rotation sensor, a shift amount and a rotation amount between frame images which are neighboring with respect to position have to be detected from image data. For the detection, a motion vector between images has to be calculated. For the real-time processing, a high-speed image processor is required.
Further, in order to improve the operability of the device of obtaining an ultrasound slice image, a function capable of producing a panorama image only by correcting an operation partly is necessary even when a wrong region is scanned by a manual probe operation of the user of the diagnosing device. For example, in the case of measuring the bloodstream, the user has to move the probe along the blood vessel on the surface of the human body. Since the blood vessel is narrow, however, there is a case such that the position of the probe is deviated from the position of the blood vessel to be measured. In such a case, when the operation of the probe is not restarted but can be corrected and the scanning can be restarted, the operability is certainly improved. When means by which the user can check the slice image while shifting (scanning with) the probe without turning his/her eyes from the probe position is provided, accurate scanning operation can be made possible.
Realization of a desired ultrasound diagnosing device has, however, a problem such that the cost of the device is very high since the mechanical scanner to which the position sensor is attached, a high-speed image processor, or the like is necessary.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,286 discloses a panorama image generating technique for use in an ultrasound diagnosing device, for obtaining a panorama image by deriving a motion vector between ultrasound image frames which are related to each other and connecting a plurality of frame images by using the motion vector. Since the technique disclosed in the above uses what is called advanced block matching to obtain the motion vector, however, a signal processing amount is still large. There is a problem such that a high speed signal processor is necessary to perform a real-time process.
Although the conventional ultrasound diagnosing device is safe to the human body, there are problems of the high cost of the device and the low operability in the case of displaying a panorama image of the whole. Specifically, there are problems such that a high-speed image processor is necessary to obtain the panorama image of the human body from partial cross-sectional images and the panorama image is discontinued when the probe is not moved accurately.
It is therefore an object of the invention to provide a panorama image synthesizing method capable of generating and real-time displaying a panorama image from ultrasound images of the subject and a cheap, easily operable ultrasound diagnosing device of carrying out the method.
In order to achieve the object, there is provided a method of synthesizing a panorama image from ultrasound images, comprising the steps of: obtaining image data of a plurality of frame images which are time-sequential derived by ultrasound waves returned from the subject such as a human body, detecting positional relation data between neighboring frame images, that is, a shift amount and a rotation amount between the frame images from data in each of specific designated areas of the plurality of frame images, and connecting the plurality of frame images in a predetermined position. As necessary, the panorama image data is converted into an image signal and the image signal is displayed on a display.
The method of the invention also includes not only a mode of directly obtaining the positional relation data from motion image data captured from the probe, obtaining panorama image data, and real-time displaying the panorama image on the display simultaneously with the movement of the probe but also a mode of storing data of the plurality of frame images into storing means, obtaining the panorama image data from the data in the storing means after elapse of some time, and displaying the panorama image data on display means.
An image synthesizing device for synthesizing a panorama image according to the invention comprises: means for inputting a plurality of frame images which are neighboring with respect to position; motion detecting means for detecting positional relation data between the frame images, that is, a shift amount and a rotation amount between the frame images from data in a specific area of the plurality of frame images; a signal processor for obtaining panorama image data by connecting the plurality of frame images in a predetermined position by using the shift amount and the rotation amount; and a display device for displaying the panorama image data. The motion detecting means has calculating means for performing the following processes.
The calculating means has: signal processing means for obtaining the shift amount by deriving a projective distribution in a single designated specific area in consecutive frame images and correlating the projective distributions in the single specific area between neighboring frame images; and signal processing means for deriv
Miyatake Takafumi
Nagasaka Akio
Umemura Shin'ichiro
Hitachi , Ltd.
Imam Ali M.
Lateef Marvin M.
Mattingly Stanger & Malur, P.C.
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