CONSISTENCY METRIC BASED IMAGE REGISTRATION

• US 20100260392A1
• Filed: 12/12/2008
• Published: 10/14/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 12/18/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Original Assignee: Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Opfer, Roland, Wiemker, Rafael, Kabus, Sven, Buelow, Thomas
• Application Number:
  US12/746,179
• Publication Number:
  US 20100260392A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/128
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/10081 Computed x-ray tomography [CT]
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/337 involving reference images or patches
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/24 Aligning, centring, orientation detection or correction of the image
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 2201/03 Recognition of patterns in medical or anatomical images
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/20 for handling medical images, e.g. DICOM, HL7 or PACS
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 30/40 for processing medical images, e.g. editing

Abstract

A method includes registering a first sub-portion of a first image with a corresponding second sub-portion of a second image, and registering the second sub-portion of the second image with a corresponding third sub-portion of the first image. The first sub-portion encompasses a first object of interest, and the third sub-portion encompasses a third object of interest. The method further includes reducing a size of the first sub-portion when the first and third objects of interest are substantially similar. The method further includes repeating the steps of registering the first sub-portion, registering the second sub-portion, and reducing the size of the first sub-portion until the first and third objects are not substantially similar.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

registering a first sub-portion of a first image with a corresponding second sub-portion of a second image, wherein the first sub-portion encompasses a first object of interest;

registering the second sub-portion of the second image with a corresponding third sub-portion of the first image, wherein the third sub-portion encompasses a third object of interest;

reducing a size of the first sub-portion when the first and third objects of interest are substantially similar; and

repeating the steps of registering the first sub-portion, registering the second sub-portion, and reducing the size of the first sub-portion until the first and third objects are not substantially similar.

2. The method of claim 1, further including determining a consistency metric indicative of the similarly between the first and third objects of interest, and repeating the steps of registering the first sub-portion, registering the second sub-portion, and reducing the size of the first sub-portion based on the consistency metric.

3. The method of claim 2, further including computing the consistency metric by computing the Euclidian distance between the first and third objects of interest.

4. The method of claim 3, further including comparing the consistency metric with a pre-set consistency threshold to determine whether the first and third objects of interest are substantially similar.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the second sub-portion encompasses a second object of interest, and further including presenting the first and second sub-portions corresponding to the first and second sub-portions at which the first and third objects of interest are substantially similar.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the presented first and second sub-portions have a size that includes enough anatomical content to unambiguously register the first sub-portion with the second sub-portion.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and third sub-portions are volumes of interest.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the size of the first sub-portion is reduced by a fixed percentage.

9. The method of claim 1, further including using a volume preserving registration in which only one or more of translation, orientation and scaling are employed to register the sub-portions.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the second sub-portion encompasses a second object of interest, and further including optimizing a similarity measure between image values in the first and second sub-portions and images values in the second and third sub-portions.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein the object of interest is a tumor.

12. An image registration system, comprising:

a registration component that registers a first volume of interest of a first image with a corresponding second volume of interest of a second image and reverse registers the second volume of interest of the second image with a corresponding third volume of interest of the first image, wherein the first volume of interest includes a first object of interest and the third volume of interest includes a third object of interest;

a consistency determining component that determines a consistency value between the first and third objects of interest, wherein the consistency value is indicative of the similarly between the first and third objects of interest; and

a decision component that determines whether a size of the first volume of interest is reduced based on the consistency value.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the decision component compares the consistency value with a consistency threshold to determine whether the size of the first volume of interest is reduced.

14. The system of claim 12, wherein the consistency value is a Euclidian distance between the first and third objects of interests, and the Euclidian distance is normalized over a total number of voxels used to determine the consistency value.

15. The system of claim 12, wherein the size of the first volume of interest is reduced by a fixed volume.

16. The system of claim 12, wherein the consistency value is based on at least one of correlation, root mean square deviation, or mutual information to register the volumes of interest.

17. The system of claim 12, further including weighting contributions from the volumes of interest with weights that decrease from a center of the volumes of interest to a periphery of the volumes of interest.

18. The system of claim 12, wherein the registration component employs one of an exhaustive, a stochastic, or a Gauss-Newton registration.

19. A method, comprising:

iteratively reducing a size of a volume of interest in a first image until a consistency error between a forward and a reverse registration of the volume of interest between a first and second image becomes greater than a consistency error threshold; and

presenting a first volume of interest of the first image and a second volume of interest of the second image, wherein the first and second volumes of interest have a size that corresponds to a size of the volume of interest at which the consistency error between the forward and the reverse registration was less than the consistency error threshold.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the first and second volumes of interest include enough anatomical content to unambiguously register the first and second volumes of interest so that a first object of interest in the first volume of interest substantially maps to a second object of interest in the second volume of interest, wherein the first and second objects of interest correspond to a same anatomical structure.