METHOD AND DEVICE FOR DISPLAYING CHANGES IN MEDICAL IMAGE DATA

• US 20130083979A1
• Filed: 01/16/2012
• Published: 04/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brainlab AG
• Original Assignee: Brainlab AG
• Inventors: Vilsmeier, Stefan
• Granted Patent: US 8,781,188 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 382/128
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/00 2D [Two Dimensional] image generation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 13/20 3D [Three Dimensional] animation
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 19/00 Manipulating 3D models or images for computer graphics

Abstract

Method for displaying changes in medical image data, comprising the steps of

• • acquiring at least two medical anchor image datasets representing medical image data at different points in time,
  • determining at least one transformation
  • calculating at least one intermediate image dataset representing intermediate image data by using the transformation and
  • displaying the medical image data represented by the anchor image datasets and the intermediate image dataset(s) as an image sequence.

Claims

1. A method for displaying changes in medical image data, comprising:

acquiring at least two medical anchor image datasets representing medical image data at different points in time;

determining at least one transformation;

calculating at least one intermediate image dataset representing intermediate image data by using the transformation; and

displaying the medical image data represented by the anchor image datasets and the intermediate image dataset(s) as an image sequence.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation is determined by elastic image fusion.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the transformation is a transformation matrix.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein, if an image dataset, that is an anchor image dataset or an intermediate image dataset, represents three-dimensional image data, then a two-dimensional representation of the three-dimensional image data is calculated and the two-dimensional representation is used in the image sequence.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein the two-dimensional representation is calculated using volume rendering.

6. The method of claim 1 wherein the intermediate image datasets represent two-dimensional medical image data.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the anchor image datasets comprise time stamps and the number of intermediate image datasets between two anchor image datasets is calculated based on the time stamps of these two anchor image datasets.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the anchor image datasets are segmented to identify at least one object of interest within the anchor image datasets.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the anchor image datasets is modified to harmonize the anchor image datasets.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the viewing direction of each anchor image dataset is determined and the viewing direction of an intermediate image dataset is calculated from the viewing directions of the two anchor image datasets between which the intermediate image dataset is located.

11. The method according to claim 1, wherein an intermediate image dataset is stored in a cloud database.

12. The method according to claim 1, wherein an intermediate image dataset is calculated in a cloud.

13. The method according to claim 1, wherein the image sequence is displayed by video streaming.

14. An electronic device for displaying changes in medical image data, comprising a control unit configured to carry out the method steps as claimed in claim 1.

15. A computer program which, when running on a computer or when loaded onto a computer, causes the computer to perform the method as claimed in claim 1 and/or to a program storage medium on which the program is stored (in particular in a nontransitory form) and/or to a computer on which the program is running or into the memory of which the program is loaded.