Abstract: A method and a corresponding apparatus for determining a position in an image, in particular a medical image enables a reliable determination of positions of interest in images of a variety of structures by displaying a volume rendering of image data acquired from an object, in particular a patient, pointing at a structure of interest displayed in the volume rendering of the image data, generating a viewing ray profile comprising information characterizing a ray running through said structure of interest, selecting a contextual profile from various contextual profiles, each of said contextual profiles comprising a representative ray profile representing a viewing ray profile of a structure, in particular an anatomical structure, and comprising profile information, and determining a position within said structure of interest based on said profile information of said selected contextual profile in the case that the representative ray profile of said selected contextual profile is matching with at least a part o
Type:
Grant
Filed:
November 25, 2009
Date of Patent:
June 25, 2013
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare, NV
Inventors:
Peter Kohlmann, Lukas Mroz, Rainer Wegenkittl, Stefan Bruckner, Eduard Groeller, Armin Kanitsar
Abstract: Method of eliminating the effect of afterglow on a radiation image read out of a photostimulable phosphor screen. For each pixel the amount of afterglow generated by previously scanned pixels in the same line of pixels is determined and subtracted from the digital signal representation of that pixel.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
March 4, 2010
Date of Patent:
May 28, 2013
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare NV
Inventors:
Luc Struye, Paul Leblans, Dirk Vandenbroucke
Abstract: Method and system for determining the spatial response signature of a x-ray detector comprising a photostimulable phosphor by generating a flat field image of the detector, generating a low-pass filtered version of the flat field image and background demodulating the flat field image by pixel-wise dividing it by means of corresponding pixel values in the low-pass filtered version.
Abstract: At least one approximation image is created of the image at one or multiple scales. Translation difference images are created by pixel-wise subtracting the values of an approximation image at scale s and the values of a translated version of the approximation image. A non-linear modification is applied to the values of the translation difference image (s) and at least one enhanced center difference image at a specific scale is computed by combining the modified translation difference images at that scale or a smaller scale with weights Wi,j. An enhanced image is computed by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the enhanced center difference images. The non-linear modification of the values of the translation difference images is steered by the values of an orientation map which comprises for each pixel a local direction of interest.
Abstract: A system and method for retrieving objects stored on a storage medium, the method comprises receiving a request from a first client for a first object; populating a queue with the request for the first object; retrieving the first object from the storage medium; and sending the object to the first client.
Type:
Application
Filed:
October 25, 2011
Publication date:
April 25, 2013
Applicant:
AGFA HEALTHCARE INC.
Inventors:
Kinson Kin Sang HO, William Eric WALLACE, Steven Joseph KROETSCH
Abstract: A digital image signal is decomposed into a multi-scale representation comprising detail images and approximation images. Translation difference images are computed by subtracting an approximation image at scale s and a translated version of that approximation image. The values of the translation difference images are non-linearly modified. An amplification image is computed at least one scale as the ratio of a first image being computed by combining the modified translation difference images at the same or smaller scale and a second image created by combining unenhanced translation difference images at the same or smaller scale. Next, an enhanced multi-scale detail representation is computed by modifying at least one scale the detail image according to the amplification image at that scale. An enhanced image representation is computed by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the enhanced multi-scale detail representation.
Abstract: A region of interest in the image is determined and for each pixel in each location (x,y) in that region of interest a value hint(x,y) is computed representing the amount of dense tissue below said pixel as h int ? ( x , y ) = 2 ? fat ? ( E ) - ? int ? ( E ) ? ( Log ? ( p ? ( x , y ) ) - Log ? ( p fat ) ) wherein p(x,y) represents the pixel value of a pixel at location (x,y) in said digital mammographic image, pfat is a reference fat pixel value, ?fat,?int are the linear attenuation coefficients of fat tissue and dense tissue and E is the mono-energetic energy value of the x-ray source at image recording, whereby E and pfat are derived from said digital mammographic image representation.
Abstract: The invention relates to an apparatus (10) and a corresponding process for identifying an object (20) with an article dependently upon a piece of barcode information detected from a barcode (30) with which the object (20) is identified. Here a number of article numbers are stored in a memory (60) which are assigned, on the one hand, to a number of articles and on the other hand to a number of different article number types. According to the invention, the piece of barcode information detected is compared with article numbers stored in the memory (60) dependently upon a specified sequence of article number types. In the case of the piece of barcode information detected corresponding with one of the stored article numbers, the object (20) is identified with the article assigned to this article number.
Abstract: The invention relates to a system and to a corresponding method for optical coherence tomography having a light source (15) for producing light (14), a first interferometer (10), a second interferometer (20) and an optical fiber (17) by means of which light emitted by the first interferometer (10) is conveyed to the second interferometer (20). For simpler and more efficient injection of the light emitted by the first interferometer (10) into the optical fiber (17) provision is made such that light is injected into the first interferometer (10) which has a first number of transversal modes, and the optical fiber (17) has at least one multi-mode fiber into which the light passing out of the first interferometer (10) is injected such that in the optical fiber (17) a second number of transversal modes is stimulated which is conveyed to the second interferometer (20), the second number of transversal modes being substantially greater than the first number of transversal modes.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 20, 2008
Date of Patent:
December 25, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Rainer Nebosis, Rainer Scheunemann, Edgar-Gerald Kopp
Abstract: The invention relates to a system and to a corresponding method for optical coherence tomography having an interferometer (10) and a detector system (30, 31) which comprises a detector (30) for collecting the light reflected by a specimen (1) to be examined and has a sensitivity to the light reflected by the specimen (1). In order to reduce the times required for the most reliable possible recording of interference signals provision is made such that the sensitivity of the detector system (30, 31) to the light reflected by the specimen (1) and impinging on the detector (30) is modulated with a modulation frequency.
Abstract: The invention relates to a system for generating evaluation data with a data base for storing original data, a memory for storing an evaluation program for the evaluation of original data stored in the data base and a control. In order to achieve rapid and reliable provision of evaluation data, an evaluation order for evaluating original data is generated upon the occurrence of a pre-specified event. It is checked by the control whether an evaluation order has been generated. In the event of an evaluation order being present, the evaluation program stored in the memory is started dependently upon the evaluation order, the evaluation program accessing original data stored in the data base dependently upon the evaluation order and the evaluation data being generated from this.
Abstract: A Markov Random Field (MRF)-based technique is described for performing clustering of images characterized by poor or limited data. The proposed method is a statistical classification model that labels the image pixels based on the description of their statistical and contextual information. Apart from evaluating the pixel statistics that originate from the definition of the K-means clustering scheme, the model expands the analysis by the description of the spatial dependence between pixels and their labels (context), hence leading to the reduction of the inhomogeneity of the segmentation output with respect to the result of pure K-means clustering.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
October 24, 2007
Date of Patent:
October 16, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Marek Suliga, Piet Dewaele, Rudi Deklerck, Edgard Nyssen, Gert Behiels
Abstract: At least one approximation image is created of the image at one or multiple scales. Translation difference images are created by pixel-wise subtracting the values of an approximation image at scale s and the values of a translated version of the approximation image. A non-linear modification is applied to the values of the translation difference image (s) and at least one enhanced center difference image at a specific scale is computed by combining the modified translation difference images at that scale or a smaller scale with weights wi,,j. An enhanced image is computed by applying a reconstruction algorithm to the enhanced center difference images. The non-linear modification of the values of the translation difference images is steered by (a) characteristic (s) computed out of the approximation image (s) at least one scale.
Abstract: A process, and to a corresponding apparatus for reading out and erasing X-ray information stored in storage phosphor layers, comprising the following: irradiating the storage phosphor layer (1) with stimulation light (3) by means of which the storage phosphor layer (1) is stimulated to emit emission light, collecting the emission light emitted at different locations (x, y) of the storage phosphor layer (1) with a detector (7), detector signal values (D(x, y)) being obtained for different locations (x, y) of the storage phosphor layer (1), and irradiating the storage phosphor layer (1) with erasing light (21), the quantity of erasing light (21) being determined by means of the detector signal values (D(x, y)).
Type:
Grant
Filed:
August 11, 2010
Date of Patent:
October 2, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Stephan Mair, Thomas Hartmann, Bernd Gerstlauer
Abstract: Method to bring out a temporal difference between corresponding structures in a reference image R and a floating image F by convolving the reference image R and the floating image F with a window function Hw to generate Rw and Fw, applying a non-rigid transformation resulting in a transformation field g(rR) mapping every location rR to a corresponding location rF in the floating image F and generating a subtraction image by performing subtraction Rw(r)?Fw(g(r)) wherein r represents a voxel (x, y, z) in reference image R.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 8, 2008
Date of Patent:
July 24, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Dieter Seghers, Piet Dewaele, Paul Suetens
Abstract: A workflow method for temporal nodule review by registering a reference image R with a floating image F, convolving the reference image R and the floating image with the same window function Hw to generate Rw and Fw, generating a subtraction image by performing subtraction Rw?Fw (g(r)) wherein r represents a voxel (x, y, z) in reference image R, applying a pattern detector to said subtraction image to detect corresponding nodules in reference image R and floating image F and displaying corresponding nodules.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 8, 2008
Date of Patent:
July 24, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Dieter Seghers, Piet Dewaele, Paul Suetens
Abstract: An image point in a displayed reference image R is selected and a non-rigid transformation resulting in a transformation field g(rR) mapping every location rR to a corresponding location rF in a floating image F is applied, next a rigid body transformation is applied to floating image F such that rF coincides with the selected image point and the transformed floating image is displayed.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 8, 2008
Date of Patent:
July 17, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare N.V.
Inventors:
Dieter Seghers, Piet Dewaele, Paul Suetens
Abstract: The invention relates to a system for optical coherence tomography having an interferometer (20), a detector (30) with a first number of detector elements for collecting light, and an optical fiber (29) with a second number of individual fibers for transmitting light from the interferometer (20) to the detector (30). In order to increase the compactness of the system with at the same time high image quality provision is made such that the detector elements have a first center-center distance and the individual fibers have a second center-center distance, the first center-center distance between the detector elements being greater than the second center-center distance between the individual fibers.
Type:
Grant
Filed:
February 20, 2008
Date of Patent:
June 12, 2012
Assignee:
Agfa HealthCare NV
Inventors:
Rainer Nebosis, Rainer Scheunemann, Edgar-Gerald Kopp
Abstract: A method for neutralizing the non-noise correlated, multiplicative image-artifacts introduced by the X-ray exposure, the detector or the digitizer prior to the determination of the Signal-to-Noise Ratio or the (Normalized) Noise Power Spectrum in CR/DR radiography systems. This method uses statistical techniques and the photon-noise physical model to correct the raw, digital image-data obtained in the selected region of interest (roi) for evaluation during quality control (QC).
Abstract: A gray value model is generated encoding photometric knowledge at landmark positions. This step exploits intensity correlation in neighborhoods sampled around landmark positions. A geometric model is generated encoding geometric knowledge between landmarks. This step exploits spatial correlation between landmarks of segmented anatomic entities.