Apparatus and method for identifying specific bone regions in digital X-ray images
First Claim
1. A method of automatically segmenting the bone regions in a digital radiograph of a body extremity comprising the steps of:
- providing a digital radiographic image of a body extremity having one or more digits;
estimating upper and lower threshold values of said provided image;
binarizing said provided image by a binarization system which uses said estimated upper and lower threshold values to produce a bi-tonal image;
removing noise from said bi-tonal image by a noise removal system;
processing said noise removed bi-tonal image by a skeletonization technique in order to form an initial estimate of the central axis of each body extremity digit;
approximating the locus of points generated by said processing step by a linear fit system;
joining lines with near end points with a line linking system which results in a piece wise linear approximation of the central axis for each body extremity digit;
for each point along the axes, generating perpendicular projections which extend a fixed pixel distance;
for each perpendicular projection, averaging the pixel values by a trace generation system;
convolving each density trace with a matched filter;
analyzing the output of said matched filter step by a joint detection system to locate digit joints;
for each body extremity digit, determining the bone edges between two joints; and
determining the average density of the digit region between said digit joints and bone edges.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of automatically segmenting the bone regions in a digital radiograph of a body extremity comprising the steps of: providing a digital radiographic image of a body extremity having one or more digits; estimating the upper and lower threshold values of the provided image; binarizing the provided image by a binarization system which uses the estimated upper and lower threshold values to produce a bi-tonal image; removing noise from the binarized image by a noise removal system; processing the noise removed binary image by a skeletonization technique in order to form an initial estimate of the central axis of each body extremity digit; approximating the locus of points generated by the processing step by a linear fit system; joining lines with near end points with a line linking system which results in a piece wise linear approximation of the central axis for each body extremity digit; for each point along the axes, generating perpendicular projections which extend a fixed pixel distance; for each perpendicular projection, averaging the pixel values by a trace generation system; convolving each density trace with a matched filter; analyzing the output of the matched filter step by a joint detection system to locate digit joints; for each body extremity digit, determining the bone edges between two joints; and determining the average density of the digit region between the digit joints and bone edges.
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Citations
10 Claims
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1. A method of automatically segmenting the bone regions in a digital radiograph of a body extremity comprising the steps of:
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providing a digital radiographic image of a body extremity having one or more digits; estimating upper and lower threshold values of said provided image; binarizing said provided image by a binarization system which uses said estimated upper and lower threshold values to produce a bi-tonal image; removing noise from said bi-tonal image by a noise removal system; processing said noise removed bi-tonal image by a skeletonization technique in order to form an initial estimate of the central axis of each body extremity digit; approximating the locus of points generated by said processing step by a linear fit system; joining lines with near end points with a line linking system which results in a piece wise linear approximation of the central axis for each body extremity digit; for each point along the axes, generating perpendicular projections which extend a fixed pixel distance; for each perpendicular projection, averaging the pixel values by a trace generation system; convolving each density trace with a matched filter; analyzing the output of said matched filter step by a joint detection system to locate digit joints; for each body extremity digit, determining the bone edges between two joints; and determining the average density of the digit region between said digit joints and bone edges. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. A computer storage product comprising:
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a computer readable storage medium having a computer program stored thereon for performing a method of automatically segmenting the bone regions in a digital radiograph of a body extremity comprising the steps of; providing a digital radiographic image of a body extremity having one or more digits; estimating upper and lower threshold values of said provided image; binarizing said provided image by a binarization system which uses said estimated upper and lower threshold values to produce a bi-tonal image; removing noise from said bi-tonal image by a noise removal system; processing said noise removed bi-tonal image by a skeletonization technique in order to form an initial estimate of the central axis of each body extremity digit; approximating the locus of points generated by said processing step by a linear fit system; joining lines with near end points with a line linking system which results in a piece wise linear approximation of the central axis for each body extremity digit; for each point along the axes, generating perpendicular projections which extend a fixed pixel distance; for each perpendicular projection, averaging the pixel values by a trace generation system; convolving each density trace with a matched filter; analyzing the output of said matched filter step by a joint detection system to locate digit joints; for each body extremity digit, determining the bone edges between two joints; and determining the average density of the digit region between said digit joints and bone edges.
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Specification