SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR SEGMENTING DIGITAL IMAGES
First Claim
1. A computer-implemented segmentation method for segmenting a digitized pathology image of tissue into at least two non-overlapping_regions for use in disease diagnosis, the method comprising:
- generating a first initial data set comprising a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to a first region using a first method of processing;
generating a second initial data set comprising a current best segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region using a second method of processing;
iteratively determining a final first region data set based on the first and second initial data sets, wherein the final first region data set comprises a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region; and
segmenting the digitized pathology image into a first region and a remainder region based on the final first region data set.
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Abstract
Methods and systems disclosed herein provide the capability to automatically process digital pathology images quickly and accurately. According to one embodiment, an digital pathology image segmentation task may be divided into at least two parts. An image segmentation task may be carried out utilizing both bottom-up analysis to capture local definition of features and top-down analysis to use global information to eliminate false positives. In some embodiments, an image segmentation task is carried out using a “pseudo-bootstrapping” iterative technique to produce superior segmentation results. In some embodiments, the superior segmentation results produced by the pseudo-bootstrapping method are used as input in a second segmentation task that uses a combination of bottom-up and top-down analysis.
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Citations
15 Claims
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1. A computer-implemented segmentation method for segmenting a digitized pathology image of tissue into at least two non-overlapping_regions for use in disease diagnosis, the method comprising:
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generating a first initial data set comprising a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to a first region using a first method of processing; generating a second initial data set comprising a current best segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region using a second method of processing; iteratively determining a final first region data set based on the first and second initial data sets, wherein the final first region data set comprises a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region; and segmenting the digitized pathology image into a first region and a remainder region based on the final first region data set. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A computer-implemented information fusion method for segmenting a digitized pathology image of tissue into regions for use in disease diagnosis, the method comprising:
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generating a confidence map of an unwanted region of the tissue by feature extraction; obtaining a binary confidence map by thresholding the confidence map; applying the binary confidence map as an image mark to the digital pathology image to suppress the unwanted region, wherein suppressing the unwanted region comprises changing pixel values of pixels in the unwanted region to a constant value; generating a version of the digitized pathology image with pixels of the unwanted region set to a constant value; and generating a data set comprising a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region using a bottom-up processing method.
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9. A system for segmenting a digital image into at least two segments comprising:
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a memory having program instructions and data storage space; a processor configured to use the program instructions to perform the steps of; generating a first initial data set comprising a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to a first region using a first method of processing; generating a second initial data set comprising a current best segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region using a second method of processing; iteratively determining a final first region data set based on the first and second initial data sets, wherein the final first region data set comprises a segmentation of pixels in the digitized pathology image as belonging to the first region; and segmenting the digitized pathology image into a first region and a remainder region based on the final first region data set. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
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Specification