Depth of Field Extension for Optical Tomography
First Claim
1. An optical projection tomography system for imaging an object of interest, the optical projection tomography system comprising:
- (a) a light source;
(b) an object-containing tube, a portion of which is located within the region illuminated by the light source, wherein the object of interest has at least one feature of interest located within the object-containing tube;
(c) at least one detector, wherein the at least one detector is located to receive emerging radiation from the object of interest; and
(d) at least one lens located in the optical path between the object region and the at least one detector, wherein the at least one lens includes at least one optical field extension element such that light rays from multiple object planes in the object-containing tube simultaneously focus on the at least one detector.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
An optical projection tomography system is illuminated with a light source. An object-containing tube, a portion of which is located within the region illuminated by the light source, contains an object of interest that has a feature of interest. A detector is located to receive emerging radiation from the object of interest. A lens, including optical field extension elements, is located in the optical path between the object region and the detector, such that light rays from multiple object planes in the object-containing tube simultaneously focus on the detector. The object-containing tube moves relatively to the detector and the lens operate to provide multiple views of the object region for producing an image of the feature of interest at each view.
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Citations
98 Claims
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1. An optical projection tomography system for imaging an object of interest, the optical projection tomography system comprising:
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(a) a light source; (b) an object-containing tube, a portion of which is located within the region illuminated by the light source, wherein the object of interest has at least one feature of interest located within the object-containing tube; (c) at least one detector, wherein the at least one detector is located to receive emerging radiation from the object of interest; and (d) at least one lens located in the optical path between the object region and the at least one detector, wherein the at least one lens includes at least one optical field extension element such that light rays from multiple object planes in the object-containing tube simultaneously focus on the at least one detector. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 71, 72, 73)
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22. An optical tomography system for viewing an object of interest comprising:
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a microcapillary tube viewing area for positioning the object of interest; at least one detector; a motor located to attach to and rotate a microcapillary tube; means for transmitting broadband light having wavelengths between 550 nm and 620 nm into the microcapillary tube viewing area; a hyperchromatic lens located to receive light transmitted through the microcapillary tube viewing area; and a tube lens located to focus light rays transmitted through the hyperchromatic lens, such that light rays from multiple object planes in the microcapillary tube viewing area simultaneously focus on the at least one detector. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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31. An optical tomography system for viewing all object of interest comprising:
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a microcapillary tube containing the object of interest; a motor, attached to the microcapillary tube, for rotating the microcapillary tube; a light source located to illuminate the microcapillary tube; a hyperchromatic lens located to receive light transmitted through the microcapillary tube; a dichroic beamsplitter located to split a plurality of ray paths originating in multiple object planes in the microcapillary tube as transmitted through the hyperchromatic lens; and at least two detectors, where a first detector of the at least two detectors is located to receive light transmitted along one of the plurality of ray paths, and a second detector of the at least two detectors is located to receive light transmitted along another of the plurality of ray paths, where light rays from the multiple object planes are simultaneously focused on at least one of the at least two detectors. - View Dependent Claims (32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45)
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46. A method for finding a midpoint of a focus-invariant region in a focus-invariant optical tomography system, where the optical tomography system includes an objective lens with an optical axis and a rotating tube containing an object of interest, comprising:
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panning the objective lens along the optical axis to acquire multiple images of an object of interest; evaluating focus quality for each image; determining upper and lower boundaries of a focus invariance region; acquiring a pseudo-projection image, where the pseudo-projection'"'"'s scanning range is centered between the upper and lower boundaries; and rotating the tube and repeating panning, evaluating and acquiring steps above until a plurality of pseudo-projections have been acquired at a plurality of projection angles.
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47. A method for computing a 3D reconstruction by finding a midpoint of a focus-invariant region in a focus-invariant optical tomography system, where the optical tomography system includes an objective lens with an optical axis and a microcapillary tube containing an object of interest, comprising:
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incrementally stepping the objective lens to focus at a plurality of focal planes and acquiring a plurality of pseudo-projections of the object of interest at a plurality of focal planes in the microcapillary tube; repeating until a limit condition on the range of focal planes is met; rotating the tube through a plurality of viewing angles and repeating the above steps of stepping and repeating until a limit condition on the range of focal planes is met for each viewing angle; for each viewing angle, summing the acquired pseudo-projections acquired at that viewing angle to generate a set of summed pseudo-projections; and computing a 3D reconstruction using the summed pseudo-projections. - View Dependent Claims (48)
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49. A method for applying a focus score to identify a pseudo-projection having the best focus, comprising:
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incrementally stepping the objective lens to focus at a plurality of focal planes and acquiring a plurality of pseudo-projections of the object of interest at a plurality of focal planes in the microcapillary tube; repeating until a limit condition on the range of focal planes is met; performing a 2.5-D focus evaluation to determine a best focus mapped to the current viewing angle;
rotating the tube through a plurality of view angles and repeating the above steps of stepping and repeating for each viewing angle;for each viewing angle, summing the acquired pseudo-projections acquired at best focus for that viewing angle to generate a set of summed pseudo-projections; and computing a 3D reconstruction using the summed pseudo-projections. - View Dependent Claims (50)
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51. An autofocusing system comprising:
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a first autofocusing camera; a second autofocusing camera; an image comparator coupled to receive digitized input from the first and second autofocusing cameras, where the image comparator provides a feedback signal. a transducer drive coupled to receive the feedback signal; a microcapillary tube within a field of view of the first and second autofocusing cameras containing an object of interest, where the microcapillary tube is coupled to a rotation motor and separate images from an upper spectrum object volume and a lower spectrum object volume are captured by the first and second autofocusing cameras; where the separate images are compared and analyzed by the comparator that provides the feedback signal to drives the transducer drive which, in turn, controls an objective lens focus drive so that the focus range of an objective lens moves closer to a region of poorer focus quality, and when the difference in focus quality between the two images becomes sufficiently small, the transducer drive stops shifting the focus range; and an image camera located to receive images from the microcapillary tube. - View Dependent Claims (52, 53, 54, 55)
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56. An autofocusing system comprising:
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a source of spectrally uniform light illumination located to illuminate an object of interest within a field of view of an image camera in line with an objective lens positioned to view an object of interest; a primary beam splitter; a secondary beam splitter; a mirror; a first filter located to pass light rays from the primary beam splitter to the image camera through a first image forming lens; a second filter optically aligned with the secondary beam splitter; a third filter optically aligned with the mirror; a first Fourier plane forming lens located to transmit light from the second filter through a first Fourier plane spatial filter to a first photo sensor; a second Fourier plane forming lens located to transmit light from the third filter through a second Fourier plane spatial filter to a second photo sensor; where the first and second Fourier spatial filters provide analog feedback to a focus control controller through the first and second photo-diodes, further where the high frequency content of upper and lower portions of the focal range respectively, is compared in a signal conditioning and difference amplification processor and the signal conditioning and difference amplification processor provides an output which is used to a drive connected to control the objective lens position. - View Dependent Claims (57, 58, 59)
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60. A 2.5-dimensional image analysis method for optical tomography using focus-invariant optics comprising:
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identifying features, Gi=G1, . . . GΩ
in image stack Sk;for each feature G1, identify pixels of best focus Xi, Yi, Zi in Sk; generating a blank composite image PPk; adding intensity values of Xi, Yi, Zi to intensity values of pixels Xi, Yi in PPk repeating for all features (G1, G2 . . . GΩ
) until all features have been incorporated into PPk; andrepeating for multiple perspectives. - View Dependent Claims (61, 62, 63, 64)
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65. A folded system for optical tomography comprising:
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an objective lens for transmitting collimated light; a first dichroic beam-splitting cube located downstream from the objective lens to split the collimated light transmitted by the objective lens into a first arm and a second arm; the first arm has a wavelength λ
1 and originates in a first focal plane;a first tube lens is positioned to transmit the first arm through second beam-splitter cube, and onto a first region of the camera sensor'"'"'s active area; the second arm has a wavelength λ
2 and originates in a second focal plane;first and second mirrors positioned to pass the second arm through a tube lens after reflecting within a second dichroic beam-splitter cube and onto a second region of a camera sensor'"'"'s active area, whereby the first region and the second region of the camera acquire focused images originating from different focal planes in object space. - View Dependent Claims (66)
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67. A multiple camera system for optical tomography comprising:
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a primary objective lens; first and second mirrors located to receive light transmitted through the primary objective lens; at least three beam-splitters located to direct light along different ray paths; at least four primary tube lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; at least four secondary objective lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; at least four secondary tube lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; and at least four cameras each located along one of the ray paths, where space between one of the at least four primary tube lenses and one of the at least four secondary objective lenses differs for each ray path, so that a different object plane is focused on each of the at least four cameras. - View Dependent Claims (68, 69)
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70. A multiple camera system for optical tomography comprising:
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a primary objective lens; first and second mirrors located to receive light transmitted through the primary objective lens; at least three beam-splitters located to direct light along different ray paths; at least four primary tube lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; at least four secondary objective lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; at least four secondary tube lenses, each located along one of the ray paths; at least four cameras, each located along one of the ray paths; and wavefront coded optics positioned between the primary objective lens and the at least four cameras so that a different object plane is focused on each of the at least four cameras.
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74. An optical projection tomography method for imaging an object of interest, the optical projection tomography method comprising:
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(a) illuminating an object of interest; and (b) simultaneously focusing light rays from multiple object planes in the object of interest onto at least one detector for plurality of different views. - View Dependent Claims (75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98)
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Specification