EQUIPMENT FOR INFRARED VISION OF ANATOMICAL STRUCTURES AND SIGNAL PROCESSING METHODS THEREOF
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Abstract
Equipment for infrared vision of anatomical structures applicable to assist the physicians in endoscopic, fetoscopic or laparoscopic operations and methods for signal processing to enhance said vision, comprising two units that work together: a multimodal or multispectral imaging unit, constituted by a device comprising an endoscope or fetoscope or laparoscope, and additional optical systems to acquire multimodal images of the interior of the patient'"'"'s body; and an image processing unit, to which said images are transferred, comprising processing devices with a navigation interface which process said images and display the patient'"'"'s enhanced anatomical map image and the endoscope location, equipped with hardware and software that apply at least five different vision-enhancing methods, namely normalization, segmentation, tracking, mapping and fusion.
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Citations
28 Claims
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1-10. -10. (canceled)
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11. Equipment for infrared-enhanced imaging and functional analysis of anatomical structures and tissues, characterized in that it comprises at least two cooperating units:
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a multimodal or multispectral image acquisition unit (1) for acquiring images from the interior of the human body comprising an image capturing device, wherein said image capturing device is equipped with at least one channel from where the video images from the interior of the human body are acquired, and wherein at least one infrared light source (4) and at least one white light source (5) or a light source comprising blue, green and red wavelengths are coupled to said at least one channel. an image processing unit (2), comprising a device with an interface for processing and displaying the enhanced images of the human body acquired by the image acquisition unit (1) and for real-time locating the position of the image capturing device, wherein said image processing unit (2) comprises at least the following signal processing means; Normalization (15) signal processing means for normalizing the amount of light that illuminates the anatomical structures or tissues (7) by real-time comparing the intensities of visible light (red, green and blue) and infrared light in each image point, using a low-pass filter in the images and estimating the amount of incident infrared light; Segmentation (16) signal processing means for segmenting the images of the anatomical structures or tissues based on the real-time spectral analysis of the infrared and visible light; Tracking (17) signal processing means for obtaining tracking coordinates in real time and localizing the anatomical structures or tissues between two consecutive images generated by the normalization (15) means and the segmentation (16) means; Mapping (18) signal processing means for generating a real-time map of the anatomical structures or tissues from the images of the anatomical structures or tissues and through the use of tracking coordinates obtained by tracking (17) means; and Fusion (19) signal processing means for merging the visible-light images produced by the image acquisition unit (1) with the information obtained by any of the normalization (15) means, segmentation (16) means, tracking (17) means and mapping (18) means. - View Dependent Claims (12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)
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21. A procedure of signal processing of images of anatomical structures and tissues, characterized in that said anatomical structures or tissues are illuminated by at least one infrared light source (4) and at least one white light source (5) or a light source comprising blue, green and red wavelengths, said method comprising implementing in the image processing unit (2) at least:
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normalizing (15), consisting of signal processing to normalize the amount of light that illuminates the tissue (7) by means of the real-time comparison of the intensities of visible light (red, green and blue) and infrared light in each image point and the use of a low-pass filter in the images; segmenting (16), consisting of signal processing to segment the images of the anatomical structures or tissues based on the real-time spectral or multimodal analysis of the infrared and visible light; Tracking (17), consisting of signal processing to obtain tracking coordinates in real time and to track and localize the anatomical structures or tissues between two consecutive images generated by normalization (15) and segmentation (16); Mapping (18), consisting of signal processing to generate a real-time map of the anatomical structures or tissues from the images of the anatomical structures or tissues and through the use of tracking coordinates obtained by tracking (17); and Fusion (19), consisting of signal processing to merge visible-light images produced by the image acquisition unit (1) with the information obtained by any of the methods corresponding to normalization (15), segmentation (16), tracking (17) and mapping (18). by GPUs, FPGAs, CPU-based systems or any other hardware performing real-time processing through local, distributed or parallel computing. - View Dependent Claims (23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)
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22. An image processing unit (2) comprising a device with an interface to process and display the enhanced images of anatomical structures and tissues illuminated by at least one infrared light source (4) and at least one white light source (5) or a light source comprising blue, green and red wavelengths, wherein said image processing unit (2) comprises at least the following signal processing means:
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Normalization (15) signal processing means for normalizing the amount of light that illuminates the anatomical structures or tissues (7) by real-time comparing the intensities of visible light (red, green and blue) and infrared light in each image point, using a low-pass filter in the images and estimating the amount of incident infrared light; Segmentation (16) signal processing means for segmenting the images of the anatomical structures or tissues based on the real-time spectral analysis of the infrared and visible light; Tracking (17) signal processing means for obtaining tracking coordinates in real time to localize the anatomical structures or tissues between two consecutive images generated by the normalization (15) means and the segmentation (16) means; Mapping (18) signal processing means for generating a real-time map of the anatomical structures or tissues from the images of the anatomical structures or tissues and through the use of tracking coordinates obtained by tracking (17) means; and Fusion (19) signal processing means for merging the visible-light images produced by the image acquisition unit (1) with the information obtained by any of the normalization (15) means, segmentation (16) means, tracking (17) means and mapping (18) means.
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Specification