METHOD APPARATUS AND SYSTEM FOR DETERMINING A THERMAL SIGNATURE

• US 20110243409A1
• Filed: 12/03/2009
• Published: 10/06/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Real Imaging Ltd (Real Imaging Holdings Ltd.)
• Original Assignee: Real Imaging Ltd (Real Imaging Holdings Ltd.)
• Inventors: Solomon, Eddy, Naimi, Eyal
• Granted Patent: US 9,144,397 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/128
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0064 Body surface scanning
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/0091 for mammography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/015 By temperature mapping of body part
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 5/1077 Measuring of profiles
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 15/08 Volume rendering
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2200/04 involving 3D image data
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30096 Tumor; Lesion
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2210/41 Medical
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/11 Region-based segmentation

Abstract

A method of determining a thermal signature from thermal data associated with a body section is disclosed. The method comprises: segmenting the thermal data into a plurality of segments, and calculating a set of locations defining a contour, each location being central with respect to picture-elements associated with one segment, thereby determining the thermal signature based on the contour.

Claims

1. A method of determining a thermal signature from thermal data associated with a body section, the method comprising:

segmenting the thermal data into a plurality of segments; and

calculating a set of locations, each location representing one segment;

thereby determining the thermal signature based on said set.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said thermal data is associated with spatial data describing a surface of the body section, hence forming, together with said spatial data a thermospatial representation of the body section, and wherein at least one location of said set represents a volume-element.

3. A method of determining presence or absence of a thermally distinguished region in a body section, comprising:

determining a thermal signature of the body section by executing the method of claim 1; and

comparing said thermal signature with a reference thermal signature so as to determine the presence or absence of the thermally distinguished region.

4. A method of determining presence or absence of a thermally distinguished region in a body section, comprising:

determining a thermal signature of the body section by executing the method of claim 1; and

employing a comparison procedure for searching a library of reference thermal signatures for a reference thermal signature similar to said thermal signature of the body section so as to determine the presence or absence of the thermally distinguished region.

5. A method of monitoring a change in a thermally distinguished region in a body section, comprising:

obtaining a series of thermal images of the body section;

for each thermal image, determining a thermal signature of the body section by executing the method of claim 1; and

comparing at least two of said thermal signatures, and using said comparison for assessing changes in the thermally distinguished region, thereby monitoring the change in of the thermally distinguished region.

6. A method of monitoring a change in of a thermally distinguished region in a body section having a surface, comprising:

generating a series of thermospatial representations of the body section, each representation having thermal data of the body section associated with spatial data representing said surface;

for each thermospatial representation, determining a thermal signature of the body section by executing the method of claim 2; and

comparing at least two of said thermal signatures, and using said comparison for assessing changes in the thermally distinguished region, thereby monitoring the change in of the thermally distinguished region.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein said thermally distinguished region is a tumor and the method further comprises applying a destructive treatment to said tumor, wherein said comparison is used for assessing whether the size of said tumor is stable.

9. The method of claim 3, wherein said set defines a contour and said comparing comprises contour alignment.

10. The method of claim 2, further comprising assigning weights for at least some picture-elements of the spatial data, wherein said calculation of said set of locations is based on said weights.

13. The method of claim 2, further comprising defining a region-of-interest within the body section wherein said calculation of said set is performed only over said region-of-interest.

14. The method of claim 2, wherein said spatial data comprises data representing a surface of tissue being nearby to the body section and the method comprises defining a spatial boundary between the surface of the body section and said surface of said nearby tissue.

31. The method of claim 3, wherein said reference thermal signature corresponds to a reference body section other than the body section and being similar in shape thereto.

32. The method of claim 3, wherein said reference thermal signature comprises history data of the body section.

33. The method of claim 3, wherein the body section is a first breast of a subject and said reference body section is a second breast of said subject.

7. A method of comparing a thermospatial representation of a body section with a reference thermospatial representation of a reference body section, each thermospatial representation having thermal data of a respective body section associated with spatial data describing a surface of the respective body section, the method comprising:

for each thermospatial representation, segmenting the thermal data into a plurality of segments, and determining a morphology associated with at least one of the segments based on the thermal data of said thermospatial representation;

comparing respective morphologies amongst said thermospatial representations; and

using said comparison for determining the presence or absence of a thermally distinguished region in the body section.

11. (canceled)

12. (canceled)

15. Apparatus for determining a thermal signature from thermal data associated with a body section, the thermal data being arranged gridwise in a plurality of picture-elements representing a thermal image, the apparatus comprising:

a segmentation unit, for segmenting the thermal data into a plurality of segments;

a location calculator, for calculating a set of locations, each location representing one segment.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein said thermal data is associated with spatial data describing a surface of the body section, hence forming, together with said spatial data a thermospatial representation of the body section, and wherein at least one location of said set represents a volume-element.

17. An imaging and processing system, comprising:

a thermospatial imaging system operable to provide a thermospatial representation of a body section having a surface, the thermospatial representation having thermal data of the body section associated with spatial data describing the surface; and

the apparatus of claim 16.

21. The apparatus of claim 16, further comprising an analysis unit operable to compare said thermal signature with a reference thermal signature.

23. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein said set defines a contour and said analysis unit is operable to employ contour alignment for said comparison.

24. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein said spatial data comprises data representing a surface of tissue being nearby to the body section and the apparatus comprises a boundary definition unit for defining a spatial boundary between the surface of the body section and said surface of said nearby tissue.

18-20. -20. (canceled)

22. (canceled)

25-30. -30. (canceled)

34. A method of identifying blood vessels in a thermal image of a section of a living body, the method comprising:

convolving intensity data representing the thermal image with a predetermined vessel shapes filter thereby providing filtered data;

calculating local derivatives of said filtered data along at least two dimensions, thereby providing derivative data;

searching in said derivative data for local intensity extrema; and

applying an interpolation procedure for generating contours between at least a few of said local intensity extrema, and identifying said contours as blood vessels.

42. A method of recognizing an individual based on a body section of the individual, comprising:

identifying blood vessels in a thermal image of the body section using the method of claim 34, so as to generate a blood vessel map;

searching a searchable database of blood vessel maps for a map entry which is similar to said blood vessel map; and

identifying the individual based on said map entry.

43. A method of estimating characteristic heat conduction of a section of a living body, comprising:

obtaining a series of thermospatial representations describing the section of the living body while having at least two different shapes;

for each shape, executing the method of claim 34 for identifying at least one blood vessel in thermal data of a respective thermospatial representation and calculating a depth of said at least one blood vessel;

determining thermal stabilization period for said at least one blood vessel; and

determining the characteristic heat conduction based at least in part on said thermal stabilization period.

35-41. -41. (canceled)

44-50. -50. (canceled)