Method and apparatus for projecting diagnostic images from non-isotropic volumed diagnostic data
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A method of generating a diagnostic image of a body comprising the steps of:
- directing a radiated energy through a region of interest of the body;
detecting an interaction of the energy with the body to acquire data at a plurality of voxels, the voxels having actual spatial coordinates in dimensions of a coordinate system and being located within the region of interest of the body wherein a value of the datum of each voxel corresponds to a physical property of the body at the spatial coordinates, wherein the spatial coordinates of the voxels are not equally spaced along each of the dimensions;
storing the data of the voxels in addresses in an electronic memory wherein the addresses are related to scaled spatial coordinates of the voxels, the scaled spatial coordinates being the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels transformed by multiplying at least one coordinate by a scaling factor;
determining a desired view axis with respect to the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels along which to view the voxels, the desired view axis defined by three rotative coordinates;
calculating an effective view axis from the desired view axis and the scaling factor, so that a ray directed along the effective view axis intersects the same voxels at the scaled spatial coordinates as the desired view axis would intersect the voxels at the actual spatial coordinates;
transforming the scaled spatial coordinates of each voxel by at least one rotation to produce rotated spatial coordinates so that the effective view axis is normal to an imaging plane;
projecting the voxels along the view axis to pixels in the image plane having image coordinates corresponding to the rotates spatial coordinates; and
displaying pixel data at the image coordinates in an image.
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Abstract
A computer program for manipulating diagnostic images obtained with computed tomography or magnetic resonance systems spatially compresses acquired non-isotropic data to isotropic coordinates as stored in computer memory. A view axis along which a projected image is to be displayed is adjusted to reflect this distortion. After projecting the voxel data to pixels of an image, the data is decompressed to remove any distortion. The decompression operates over the limited number of pixels rather than the entire set of voxels providing faster image generation.
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Citations
12 Claims
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1. A method of generating a diagnostic image of a body comprising the steps of:
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directing a radiated energy through a region of interest of the body; detecting an interaction of the energy with the body to acquire data at a plurality of voxels, the voxels having actual spatial coordinates in dimensions of a coordinate system and being located within the region of interest of the body wherein a value of the datum of each voxel corresponds to a physical property of the body at the spatial coordinates, wherein the spatial coordinates of the voxels are not equally spaced along each of the dimensions; storing the data of the voxels in addresses in an electronic memory wherein the addresses are related to scaled spatial coordinates of the voxels, the scaled spatial coordinates being the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels transformed by multiplying at least one coordinate by a scaling factor; determining a desired view axis with respect to the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels along which to view the voxels, the desired view axis defined by three rotative coordinates; calculating an effective view axis from the desired view axis and the scaling factor, so that a ray directed along the effective view axis intersects the same voxels at the scaled spatial coordinates as the desired view axis would intersect the voxels at the actual spatial coordinates; transforming the scaled spatial coordinates of each voxel by at least one rotation to produce rotated spatial coordinates so that the effective view axis is normal to an imaging plane; projecting the voxels along the view axis to pixels in the image plane having image coordinates corresponding to the rotates spatial coordinates; and displaying pixel data at the image coordinates in an image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. An apparatus generating a diagnostic image of a body comprising:
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a means for directing a radiated energy through a region of interest of the body; a means for detecting an interaction of the energy with the body to acquire data at a plurality of voxels, the voxels having spatial coordinates located within the region of interest of the body wherein a value of the datum of each voxel corresponds to a physical property of the body at the spatial coordinates, wherein the voxels are not equally spaced along each of the dimension; an electronic memory means for storing the data of the voxels in addresses wherein the addresses are related to scaled spatial coordinates of the voxels, the scaled spatial coordinates being the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels transformed by multiplying at least one coordinate by a scaling factor; a means for determining a desired view axis with respect to the actual spatial coordinates of the voxels along which to view the voxels to an image plane, the desired axis defined by three rotative coordinates; a means for calculating an effective view axis from the desired view axis and the scaling factor, so that a ray directed along the effective view axis intersects the same voxels at the scaled spatial coordinates as the desired view axis would intersect the voxels at the actual spatial coordinates; a means for transforming the scaled spatial coordinates of each voxel by at least one rotation to produce rotated spatial coordinates so that the effective view axis is normal to an image plane; a means for projecting the voxels along the view axis to pixels in the image plane having image coordinates corresponding to the rotated spatial coordinates; and a means for displaying pixel data at the image coordinates in an image. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12)
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Specification