Method and means for measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting samples
First Claim
1. In the method of measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting objects through electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, in which each scanning line lying within the boundaries of an object to be evaluated supplies by means of a discriminator a binary signal corresponding to the line length between object-boundary intercepts for the particular line, the improvement which comprises subjecting at least the object region of the field to a first frame of raster scanning at a first amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout said first frame scan, integrating the discriminator output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts of said lines for said first frame, thereby developing a first integrated-frame value corresponding to the total area of the scanned object;
- subjecting said region to a second frame of raster scanning at a second amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout the second frame scan, integrating the discriminator-output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts of said lines for said second frame, thereby developing a second integrated-frame value which corresponds to an object-scanned area that is less than said total area;
developing a difference signal corresponding to the difference between said values, whereby said difference signal corresponds to the ring-like incremental area between said total area and said lesser area;
multiplying said difference signal by a calibrating value which relates light-transmittance of said first ring-shaped incremental area with volume of the substance; and
repeating such frame scans at successive different levels of discrimination with accompanying integration and difference-signal development and calibrating multiplication, for each of the resulting lesser ring-shaped incremental areas involved until no such incremental areas are applicable; and
then adding the calibration-corrected values.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
The invention contemplates an improved method and means of electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, wherein the volume of an object is evaluated according to its observed light-absorbing properties. The evaluation progresses as successive scans of the object area, at progressively quantized levels of transmitted light, and an appropriate calibration factor is applied to each of the successive object areas thus scanned, so that a volume measurement results from summing the calibration-corrected areas.
9 Citations
12 Claims
-
1. In the method of measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting objects through electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, in which each scanning line lying within the boundaries of an object to be evaluated supplies by means of a discriminator a binary signal corresponding to the line length between object-boundary intercepts for the particular line, the improvement which comprises subjecting at least the object region of the field to a first frame of raster scanning at a first amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout said first frame scan, integrating the discriminator output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts of said lines for said first frame, thereby developing a first integrated-frame value corresponding to the total area of the scanned object;
- subjecting said region to a second frame of raster scanning at a second amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout the second frame scan, integrating the discriminator-output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts of said lines for said second frame, thereby developing a second integrated-frame value which corresponds to an object-scanned area that is less than said total area;
developing a difference signal corresponding to the difference between said values, whereby said difference signal corresponds to the ring-like incremental area between said total area and said lesser area;
multiplying said difference signal by a calibrating value which relates light-transmittance of said first ring-shaped incremental area with volume of the substance; and
repeating such frame scans at successive different levels of discrimination with accompanying integration and difference-signal development and calibrating multiplication, for each of the resulting lesser ring-shaped incremental areas involved until no such incremental areas are applicable; and
then adding the calibration-corrected values. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
- subjecting said region to a second frame of raster scanning at a second amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout the second frame scan, integrating the discriminator-output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts of said lines for said second frame, thereby developing a second integrated-frame value which corresponds to an object-scanned area that is less than said total area;
-
4. Apparatus for measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting objects through electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, comprising a field-scanning television camera, a discriminator having an input adapted to receive the video signal derived by raster-scanning in said camera and producing an output signal corresponding to the scanned line length between object-boundary intercepts for the particular line in accordance with video-signal magnitude in relation to a selected threshold value, integrating means connected to the discriminated signal for intervals corresponding to scanned-line lengths between such object-boundary intercepts, evaluation means connected to said integrating means and including a control connection to said discriminator and operative in steps of at least one raster per step to adjust the threshold value at said discriminator to progressively different values in the direction of increasing gray values;
- said evaluation means including (1) means differentially and correctively processing and storing the integrated signals for successively adjacent pairs of a succession of progressively discriminated rasters of scanning the object, such corrective processing being in accordance with the mean light absorption for the range between limits represented by the threshold values applicable to the integrated signals of each said pair, and (2) means for summing the stored correctively processed values; and
indicating means connected to said evaluation means for indicating the value output of said summing means. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
- said evaluation means including (1) means differentially and correctively processing and storing the integrated signals for successively adjacent pairs of a succession of progressively discriminated rasters of scanning the object, such corrective processing being in accordance with the mean light absorption for the range between limits represented by the threshold values applicable to the integrated signals of each said pair, and (2) means for summing the stored correctively processed values; and
-
11. In the method of measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting objects through electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, in which each scanning line lying within the boundaries of an object to be evaluated supplies by means of a discriminator a binary signal corresponding to the line length between object-boundary intercepts for the particular line, the improvement which comprises subjecting at least the object region of the field to a succession of frames of raster scanning wherein there is a first amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout one frame scan and a second amplitude level of video-signal discrimination throughout a second and succeeding frame scan, integrating the discriminator output signal for all scan lines between the object-boundary intercepts for the first frame, integrating the discriminator output signal for all scan lines between object-boundary intercepts for the second frame, subtracting one of the integrated-frame values from the other of the integrated-frame values, and multiplying the resulting difference by a calibration factor related to a light-absorption characteristic intermediate those which correspond to the different amplitude levels selected for discrimination in the respective frames of raster scanning.
-
12. Apparatus for measuring substance volumes in light-transmitting objects through electronic-image analysis within a field of raster-scanned subject matter, comprising a discriminator having an input adapted to receive a video signal derived by such raster-scanning and producing a binary-signal output wherein each binary signal corresponds to the scanned line length between object-boundary intercepts for the particular line in accordance with video-signal magnitude in relation to a selected threshold value, integrating means connected to the discriminated signal corresponding to scanned-line lengths between such object-boundary intercepts, evaluation means connected to said integrating means and including a control connection to said discriminator and operative in steps of at least one raster per step to adjust the threshold value at said discriminator to progressively different values;
- said evaluation means including (1) means differentially and correctively processing and storing the integrated signals for successively adjacent pairs of a succession of progressively discriminated rasters of scanning the object, such corrective processing being in accordance with the mean light absorption for the range between limits represented by the threshold values applicable to the integrated signals of each said pair, and (2) means for summing the stored correctively processed values; and
indicating means connected to said evaluation means for indicating the value output of said summing means.
- said evaluation means including (1) means differentially and correctively processing and storing the integrated signals for successively adjacent pairs of a succession of progressively discriminated rasters of scanning the object, such corrective processing being in accordance with the mean light absorption for the range between limits represented by the threshold values applicable to the integrated signals of each said pair, and (2) means for summing the stored correctively processed values; and
Specification