IMAGE PROCESSING APPARATUS AND IMAGE PROCESSING METHOD

• US 20140240667A1
• Filed: 02/18/2014
• Published: 08/28/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 02/28/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Canon Kabushiki Kaisha (Canon Inc.)
• Inventors: Uji, Akihito, Imamura, Hiroshi, Arichika, Shigeta
• Granted Patent: US 9,820,650 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 351/206
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/0025 characterised by electronic signal processing, e.g. eye models
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/1025 for confocal scanning
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/1241 specially adapted for observation of ocular blood flow, e.g. by fluorescein angiography
• CPC Class Codes: A61B 3/14 Arrangements specially adapted for eye photography apparatus or arrangements for taking photographs per se G03B
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30041 Eye; Retina; Ophthalmic
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/0012 Biomedical image inspection

Abstract

An image processing apparatus obtains a moving image of an eye area, identifies a region of blood cells in the obtained moving image, and determines the number of determined regions of blood cells.

Claims

1. An information processing apparatus comprising:

an image obtaining unit configured to obtain a moving image of an eye area;

an identifying unit configured to identify at least one region of blood cells in the obtained moving image; and

a determining unit configured to determine the number of identified regions of blood cells.

2. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a vascular region specifying unit configured to specify a vascular region in the obtained moving image,

wherein the identifying unit identifies the region of blood cells based on a luminance value that is less than a threshold value in the specified vascular region.

3. The apparatus according to claim 2,

wherein the identifying unit determines, as the region of blood cells, a location that is adjacent to a region having a luminance value that is higher than a threshold value that is different from the threshold value of the specified vascular region, the location having a luminance value that is lower than the threshold value.

4. The apparatus according to claim 3,

wherein the identifying unit determines at least one of a blood cell, a blood cell aggregate, and a plasma region as the region of blood cells.

5. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

an information obtaining unit configured to obtain the vascular diameters of a plurality of vascular branches that include a plurality of vascular bifurcations in the obtained moving image,

wherein the identifying unit determines the region of blood cells in a vascular branch having a vascular diameter that is within a predetermined range among the plurality of vascular branches.

6. The apparatus according to claim 5, further comprising:

a vascular branch specifying unit configured to specify the plurality of vascular branches, one vascular branch being a region that includes two neighboring vascular bifurcations among the plurality of vascular bifurcations and a blood vessel between the two vascular bifurcations,

wherein the information obtaining unit obtains the vascular diameters of the specified plurality of vascular branches.

7. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a display control unit configured to, on a display unit, display a distribution of at least one of a determined value based on the number of regions of blood cells determined by the measuring unit, and the difference between the determined value and a statistical value.

8. The apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the display control unit displays the determined value for the number of regions of blood cells and a normal value range on the display unit.

9. The apparatus according to claim 7,

wherein the display control unit makes a distinction between a blood vessel that does not include the region of blood cells and a blood vessel that includes the region of blood cells, and performs display based on the distinction.

10. The apparatus according to claim 1, further comprising:

a display control unit configured to display change over time in the measured values for the number of regions of blood cells in images that were obtained at different examination dates and times.

11. The apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the determining unit calculates the number of regions of blood cells based on a plurality of determined values that were determined at times at which the phases of heartbeat or pulse wave data resemble each other.

12. The apparatus according to claim 11,

wherein reliability degree for the calculated number of regions of blood cells is calculated based on a statistical value for the plurality of determined values.

13. The apparatus according to claim 1,

wherein the determining unit performs at least one of:

calculating an index based on at least one of the sum of the lengths of blood vessels that include a region of blood cells, and the sum of the length of blood vessels that do not include a region of blood cells,

calculating at least one of a percentage of the total lengths of blood vessels that include or do not include a region of blood cells with respect to the total lengths of determination target blood vessels, and a value obtained by dividing the total lengths of blood vessels that include or do not include a region of blood cells by the area of a region of interest, and

determining a blood cell aggregate based on the distance between detected blood cells and determining the number of blood cell aggregates.

14. An information processing method comprising:

an image obtaining step of obtaining a moving image of an eye area;

an identification step of identifying a region of blood cells in the obtained moving image; and

a determination step of determining the number of identified regions of blood cells.

15. The method according to claim 14, further comprising:

a vascular region specifying step of specifying a vascular region in the obtained moving image,

wherein in the identification step, the region of blood cells is identified based on a luminance value that is below a threshold value in the specified vascular region.

16. The method according to claim 15,

wherein in the identification step, a location having a luminance value that exceeds a threshold value that is different from the threshold value in the specified vascular region and that is lower than the threshold value is determined as the region of blood cells.

17. A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing a program for causing a computer to execute the method according to claim 14.