METHODS AND APPARATUS TO FORM A WAVELET REPRESENTATION OF A PATHOLOGY SLIDE HAVING GLASS AND TISSUE REGIONS

• US 20120092476A1
• Filed: 10/15/2010
• Published: 04/19/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 10/15/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Digital Pathco, LLC, General Electric Company
• Original Assignee: General Electric Company
• Inventors: Dekel, Shai, Sherman, Alexander, Zuiderveld, Karel, Diamant, Idit
• Granted Patent: US 8,704,886 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 348/79
• CPC Class Codes: G02B 21/367 providing an output produced by processing a plurality of individual source images, e.g. image tiling, montage, composite images, depth sectioning, image comparison
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/52 Scale-space analysis, e.g. wavelet analysis multi-scale boundary representations G06V10/42
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/695 Preprocessing, e.g. image segmentation
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/132 Sampling, masking or truncation of coding units, e.g. adaptive resampling, frame skipping, frame interpolation or high-frequency transform coefficient masking
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/167 Position within a video image, e.g. region of interest [ROI]
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/17 the unit being an image region, e.g. an object
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/20 using video object coding
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/63 using sub-band based transform, e.g. wavelets
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 19/85 using pre-processing or post-processing specially adapted for video compression

Abstract

Example methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture to form a wavelet representation of a pathology slide having glass and tissue regions are disclosed. A disclosed example method includes capturing a digital image of a pathology slide, identifying a portion of the digital image that represents a glass portion of the slide, and storing a value representing that the wavelet coefficients for the identified glass portion of the slide are unused without computing a wavelet transform for the identified glass portion.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

capturing a digital image of a pathology slide;

identifying a portion of the digital image that represents a glass portion of the slide; and

storing a value representing that the wavelet coefficients for the identified glass portion of the slide are unused without computing a wavelet transform for the identified glass portion.

2. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein capturing the image comprises scanning an entirety of the slide at a first resolution, and the value is generated without scanning the glass portion of the slide at a second resolution, the second resolution being greater than the first resolution.

3. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the value comprises a one-bit value to identify the identified portion as glass.

4. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein the value is stored for a first color, and further comprising storing a second value for a second color without computing the wavelet transform for the identified glass portion.

5. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

storing the value for a first sub-band; and

storing a second value for a second sub-band without computing the wavelet transform for the identified glass portion.

6. A method as defined in claim 1, further comprising:

identifying a second portion of the digital image that represents a non-glass portion of the slide, the image captured at a first resolution;

capturing a second image of the non-glass portion of the slide at a second resolution greater than the first resolution; and

computing a wavelet transform of the second image to form a wavelet coefficient representing the non-glass portion of the slide.

7. A method as defined in claim 6, further comprising quantizing the wavelet coefficient.

8. A method as defined in claim 6, further comprising compressing the second wavelet coefficient.

9. A method as defined in claim 1, wherein identifying the portion of the digital image as the glass region comprises comparing at least one of a minimum luminance component, a minimum red component, a minimum blue component, or a minimum green component to a threshold.

10. An apparatus comprising:

an image acquirer to capture a digital image of a pathology slide;

an acquisition controller to identify a portion of the digital image that represents a glass portion of the slide; and

a coefficient computation module to store an indicator indicating that no wavelet coefficients for the identified glass portion of the slide were stored without computing a wavelet transform for the identified glass portion of the slide.

11. An apparatus as defined in claim 10, wherein the indicator comprises a one-bit value to identify the identified portion as glass.

12. An apparatus as defined in claim 10, wherein the coefficient computation module is to store the indicator for a first color, and store a second indicator for a second color without computing the wavelet transform for the identified glass portion.

13. An apparatus as defined in claim 10, wherein

the acquisition controller is to identify a second portion of the digital image that represents a non-glass portion of the slide, the image captured at a first resolution;

the image acquirer is to capture a second image of the non-glass portion of the slide at a second resolution greater than the first resolution; and

the coefficient computation module is to compute a wavelet transform of the second image to form a wavelet coefficient representing the non-glass portion of the slide.

14. An apparatus as defined in claim 13, further comprising a compression module to quantize the wavelet coefficient.

15. An apparatus as defined in claim 13, further a compression module to compress the second wavelet coefficient.

16. An apparatus as defined in claim 10, wherein the image acquirer is to identify the portion of the digital image by comparing at least one of a minimum luminance component, a minimum red component, a minimum blue component, or a minimum green component to a threshold.

17. A tangible article of manufacture storing machine-readable instructions that, when executed, cause a machine to at least:

capture a digital image of a pathology slide;

identify a portion of the digital image that represents a glass portion of the slide; and

store a flag for the identified glass portion of the slide without computing a wavelet transform for the identified glass portion, the flag representing the wavelet coefficient block associated with the identified glass portion is empty.

18. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 17, wherein the flag coefficient comprises a one-bit value to identify the identified portion as glass.

19. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 17, wherein the machine-readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to:

store the flag for a first sub-band coefficient; and

store a second flag for a second sub-band without computing the wavelet transform.

20. An article of manufacture as defined in claim 17, wherein the machine-readable instructions, when executed, cause the machine to:

identify a second portion of the digital image that represents a non-glass portion of the slide, the image captured at a first resolution;

capture a second image of the non-glass portion of the slide at a second resolution greater than the first resolution; and

compute a wavelet transform of the second image to form a wavelet coefficient representing the non-glass portion of the slide.