IMAGING APPARATUS AND CONTROL METHOD THEREFOR

• US 20110007957A1
• Filed: 07/06/2010
• Published: 01/13/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 07/09/2009
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Sakagawa, Yukio
• Application Number:
  US12/830,980
• Publication Number:
  US 20110007957A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/131
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/102 for optical coherence tomography [OCT]
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0066 Optical coherence imaging
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/14555 specially adapted for the eye fundus
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 9/02085 Combining two or more images of different regions
• CPC Class Codes: G01B 9/02091 Tomographic interferometers, e.g. based on optical coherence

Abstract

An imaging apparatus that captures a tomographic image of a subject includes: a first tomographic image acquisition unit to acquire a first tomographic image of the subject, a tomographic image analysis unit to analyze the first tomographic image, an image capturing parameter setting unit to set an image capturing parameter for capturing a second tomographic image of the subject according to a result of analysis by the tomographic image analysis unit, a second tomographic image acquisition unit to acquire the second tomographic image captured according to the image capturing parameter set by the image capturing parameter setting unit, and a correction unit to correct positional deviation of the first tomographic image by using the second tomographic image.

Claims

1. An imaging apparatus configured to capture a tomographic image of a subject, the imaging apparatus comprising:

a first tomographic image acquisition unit configured to acquire a first tomographic image of the subject;

a tomographic image analysis unit configured to analyze the first tomographic image;

an image capturing parameter setting unit configured to set an image capturing parameter for capturing a second tomographic image of the subject according to a result of analysis by the tomographic image analysis unit;

a second tomographic image acquisition unit configured to acquire the second tomographic image captured according to the image capturing parameter set by the image capturing parameter setting unit; and

a correction unit configured to correct positional deviation of the first tomographic image by using the second tomographic image.

2. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the first tomographic image acquisition unit and the second tomographic image acquisition unit constitute a same tomographic image acquisition unit.

3. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the tomographic image analysis unit is configured to analyze the first tomographic image to extract a characteristic amount of the first tomographic image, and

wherein the image capturing parameter setting unit is configured to set the image capturing parameter according to a result of extraction of the characteristic amount executed by the tomographic image analysis unit.

4. The imaging apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the characteristic amount extracted by the tomographic image analysis unit includes at least one of a spatial frequency, an amount of variation of a contrast, an edge intensity, whether a blood vessel image is included, and whether a lesion image is included, with respect to the first tomographic image.

5. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image capturing parameter setting unit is configured to set, as the image capturing parameter, at least one of a range of capturing the second tomographic image, a speed and a direction of scanning executed in capturing the second tomographic image, and a sampling density used in capturing the second tomographic image.

6. The imaging apparatus according to claim 3, further comprising an integrated image generation unit configured to generate an integrated image by integrating the first tomographic image in a first direction,

wherein the tomographic image analysis unit is configured to extract the characteristic amount from the integrated image.

7. The imaging apparatus according to claim 6, further comprising:

a wide area image acquisition unit configured to acquire a wide area image of the subject; and

a wide area image analysis unit configured to analyze the wide area image,

wherein the tomographic image analysis unit is configured to extract the characteristic amount from the integrated image according to a result of analysis by the wide area image analysis unit.

8. The imaging apparatus according to claim 7, wherein the wide area image analysis unit is configured to execute analysis processing for extracting a position at which a lesion included in the wide area image exists.

9. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising an integrated image generation unit configured to generate a first integrated image by integrating the first tomographic image in a second direction and to generate a second integrated image by integrating the second tomographic image in the second direction,

wherein the correction unit is configured to correct positional deviation of the first integrated image according to the first integrated image and the second integrated image.

10. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a display unit configured to display the image capturing parameter set by the image capturing parameter setting unit; and

an instruction acquisition unit configured to acquire an input instruction given by an operator of the imaging apparatus,

wherein the image capturing parameter is able to be modified according to the input instruction acquired by the instruction acquisition unit.

11. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the correction unit includes a sub-scanning direction position correction unit configured to correct positional deviation of the first tomographic image in capturing the first tomographic image in a sub-scanning direction by using the second tomographic image and a main scanning direction position correction unit configured to correct positional deviation of the first tomographic image in capturing the first tomographic image in a main scanning direction.

12. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the second tomographic image acquisition unit is configured to acquire at least one tomographic image of the subject as the second tomographic image.

13. The imaging apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the subject is a subject'"'"'s eye.

14. A method for controlling an imaging apparatus configured to capture a tomographic image of a subject, the method comprising:

acquiring a first tomographic image of the subject;

analyzing the first tomographic image and obtaining an analysis result;

setting an image capturing parameter for capturing a second tomographic image of the subject according to the analysis result;

acquiring the second tomographic image captured according to the set image capturing parameter; and

correcting positional deviation of the first tomographic image by using the second tomographic image.

15. A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

acquiring a first tomographic image of the subject;

analyzing the first tomographic image and obtaining an analysis result;

setting an image capturing parameter for capturing a second tomographic image of the subject according to the analysis result;

acquiring the second tomographic image captured according to the set image capturing parameter; and

correcting positional deviation of the first tomographic image by using the second tomographic image.