System and method for multi-resolution sharpness transport across color channels

• US 10,089,724 B2
• Filed: 05/15/2017
• Issued: 10/02/2018
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc. (Intuitive Surgical Holdings, LLC)
• Original Assignee: Intuitive Surgical Operations, Inc. (Intuitive Surgical Holdings, LLC)
• Inventors: Zhao, Wenyi, DiMaio, Simon P., Scott, David D.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kelley, Christopher S
• Assistant Examiner(s): Tarko, Asmamaw G
• Application Number:
  US15/595,656
• Publication Number:
  US 20170301068A1
• Time in Patent Office: 505 Days
• Field of Search: 348164, 348222
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10024 Color image
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20016 Hierarchical, coarse-to-fine, multiscale or multiresolution image processing; Pyramid transform
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/20212 Image combination
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/10 using non-spatial domain filtering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 5/73 Deblurring; Sharpening

Abstract

Provided are a system and method for image sharpening is provided that involves capturing an image, and then decomposing the image into a plurality of image-representation components, such as RGB components for example. Each image-representation component is transformed to obtain an unsharpened multi-resolution representation for each image-representation component. A multi-resolution representation includes a plurality of transformation level representations. Sharpness information is transported from an unsharpened transformation level representation of a first one of the image-representation components to a transformation level representation of an unsharpened multi-resolution representation of a second one of the image-representation components to create a sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components. The sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components is then transformed to obtain a sharpened image. The improved and sharpened image may then be displayed.

Claims

1. A computer-assisted surgical system comprising:

a display device and an image system coupled to the display device,

the image system being configured to receive an image of a surgical site captured by an image capture device, and the image system being configured to;

decompose the image into a plurality of image-representation components;

transform each image-representation component of the plurality of image-representation components to obtain an unsharpened multi-resolution representation for each image-representation component, wherein a multi-resolution representation comprises a plurality of transformation level representations;

transport sharpness information from an unsharpened transformation level representation of a first one of the image-representation components of the plurality of image-representation components to a same transformation level representation of an unsharpened multi-resolution representation of a second one of the image-representation components of the plurality of image-representation components to create a sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components, wherein the transported sharpness information modifies sharpness information in the same transformation level representation of the unsharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components;

transform the sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components to obtain a sharpened image; and

send the sharpened image to the display device; and

the display device being coupled to the image system to receive the sharpened image, and the display device being configured to display the sharpened image.

2. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the sharpened image comprises an RGB image.

3. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the image comprises near infrared spectrum features and visible spectrum features.

4. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the image system being configured to decompose the image into a plurality of image-representation components comprises the image system being configured to perform a color space transform.

5. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 4:

wherein the image system being configured to perform a color space transform comprises the image system being configured to perform a color space transform of RGB image-representation components to YCbCr image-representation components.

6. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the plurality of image-representation components comprises RGB image-representation components.

7. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein one of the image-representation components of the plurality of image-representation components comprises information from a near infrared spectrum feature of the image and an another one of the image-representation components of the plurality of image-representation components comprises information from a visible spectrum feature of the image.

8. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the transformation level representations comprise Laplacian representations.

9. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the transformation level representations comprise wavelet representations.

10. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1, the image system being further configured to:

transport sharpness information from a second unsharpened transformation level representation of the first one of the image-representation components to a second transformation level representation of the unsharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components to create the sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components.

11. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the sharpness information is image-driven.

12. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 11:

wherein the image-driven sharpness information is gradient-based.

13. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 11:

wherein the image-driven sharpness information is based on local statistics.

14. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 13:

wherein the local statistics comprise kurtosis and/or eigenvalues.

15. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the sharpness information comprises sharpest sharpness information selected from each of the unsharpened multi-resolution representations for each image-representation component of the plurality of image-representation components.

16. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1, the image system being further configured to:

transform the unsharpened multi-resolution representation for the first one of the image-representation components and the sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components to obtain the sharpened image.

17. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the sharpness information in the transformation level of the sharpened multi-resolution representation of the second one of the image-representation components comprises a weighted sum that includes the sharpness information from the unsharpened multi-resolution representation for the first one of the image-representation components and sharpness information from the unsharpened multi-resolution representation for the second one of the image-representation components.

18. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1, the image system being further configured to:

select a first sharpness state or a second sharpness state of the sharpened image in response to a sharpness selection input;

wherein for the first sharpness state, sharpness information is transported from a first number of unsharpened transformation level representations; and

wherein for the second sharpness state, sharpness information is transported from a second number, different from the first number, of unsharpened transformation level representations.

19. The computer-assisted surgical system of claim 1:

wherein the transformation level representations comprise Laplacian transformation level representations; and

wherein the sharpness information comprises an absolute value of pixel values in the unsharpened transformation level representation of the first one of the image-representation components.