×

Method and apparatus for automatic alingment of volumetric images containing common subject matter

  • US 5,946,425 A
  • Filed: 06/03/1996
  • Issued: 08/31/1999
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/03/1996
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
Patent Images

1. A method of aligning sets of image frames, (i) each set being representative of a volume and comprising a series of frames digitally encoding contiguous planar slices of the volume, (ii) each image frame comprising a series of image points encoded electronically as a grid of pixels, and (iii) the sets including redundant volumetric subject matter, the method comprising the steps ofa. automatically identifying common volumetric subject matter on a subregion level by systematically comparing pixels representing a subregion of a selected frame of a first frame set to pixels representing subregions of a plurality of frames of the second frame set in order to identify correspondences between subregions of the first frame set and subregions of the second frame set;

  • b. defining a field of three-dimensional translation vectors mapping each of a plurality of the first-set subregions to corresponding second-set subregions with the smallest mapping error;

    c. deriving, from the translation vectors, a set of global vectors specifying translation and rotation between the common volumetric subject matter; and

    d. based on the global vectors, translating and rotating the first frame set such that the common volumetric subject matter encoded by the frame sets is aligned.

View all claims
  • 2 Assignments
Timeline View
Assignment View
    ×
    ×