Echocardiography workstation
First Claim
Patent Images
1. An image processing system, comprising:
- an image source which digitizes and outputs a video image of a patient'"'"'s anatomy;
an image processor which implements at least one software process for processing a video image from said image source, said at least one software process removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy, automatically identifying a border of said internal structure and tracking movement of said border, and quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during a selected time frame; and
a display which displays a processed video image representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during said selected time frame, wherein said at least one software process removes noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy by performing a non-linear gray scale transformation on a received video image, recursively averaging the transformed video image, and performing a non-linear gray scale morphology operation on said transformed and averaged video image.
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Abstract
A digital image processing system for enhancing the image quality and diagnostic capabilities of conventional medical diagnostic ultrasound imaging systems and, more particularly, to an echocardiography workstation (10) which provides speckle reduction (200), edge detection, color quantitation (306), automatic diagnostic features. a built-in Help system for echocardiography, automatic quantitative analysis of left ventricular function, tomographic perfusion display (36), 3-D analysis, and report generation for improved analysis of echocardiograms.
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Citations
46 Claims
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1. An image processing system, comprising:
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an image source which digitizes and outputs a video image of a patient'"'"'s anatomy;
an image processor which implements at least one software process for processing a video image from said image source, said at least one software process removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy, automatically identifying a border of said internal structure and tracking movement of said border, and quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during a selected time frame; and
a display which displays a processed video image representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during said selected time frame, wherein said at least one software process removes noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy by performing a non-linear gray scale transformation on a received video image, recursively averaging the transformed video image, and performing a non-linear gray scale morphology operation on said transformed and averaged video image. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4)
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5. An image processing system, comprising:
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an image source which digitizes and outputs a video image of a patient'"'"'s heart, said image source including an image sequence synchronizer that synchronizes respective video image sequences of different frame lengths of the patient'"'"'s heart;
an image processor which implements at least one software process for processing a video image from said image source, said at least one software process removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of a heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart, automatically identifying a border of said heart wall and tracking movement of said heart wall, and quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during a selected time frame; and
a display which displays a processed video image representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during said selected time frame, wherein said image processor presents said respective synchronized video images of the patient'"'"'s heart to said display for concurrent display, and wherein said respective video image sequences of the patient'"'"'s heart are synchronized by a synchronization process which computes target frame counts for systolic and diastolic portions of a cardiac cycle of the patient'"'"'s heart, where the target systolic frames are {square root over (3.6N)} and the target diastolic frames are N minus the target systolic frames, where N is the number of frames in a cardiac cycle of the patient'"'"'s heart having a maximum number of frames in the cardiac cycle. - View Dependent Claims (6, 7, 8)
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9. An image processing system, comprising:
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an image source which digitizes and outputs a video image of a patient'"'"'s heart;
an image processor which implements at least one software process for processing a video image from said image source, said at least one software process removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of a heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart, automatically identifying a border of said heart wall and tracking movement of said heart wall, and quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during a selected time frame; and
a display which displays a processed video image representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during said selected time frame, wherein said at least one software process automatically identifies a border of said heart wall and tracks movement of said border by tagging frames of said video image of the patient'"'"'s heart corresponding to end-diastole (ED frame) and end-systole (ES frame) of a selected cardiac cycle, tracing said border of said heart wall, computing thresholds from the ED frame, and detecting borders of said heart wall for all frames of said selected cardiac cycle using said thresholds. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)
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23. An image processing system, comprising:
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an image source which digitizes and outputs a video image of a patient'"'"'s heart;
an image processor which implements at least one software process for processing a video image from said image source, said at least one software process removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of a heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart, automatically identifying a border of said heart wall and tracking movement of said heart wall, and quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during a selected time frame; and
a display which displays a processed video image representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall of the patient'"'"'s heart during said selected time frame, wherein said at least one software process quantitates the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall from end-diastole to end-systole by representing frame to frame movement of said heart wall in a color which is different from a background color of the processing video image displayed on said display. - View Dependent Claims (24)
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25. A method of imaging internal anatomy of a patient, comprising the steps of:
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capturing a video image of the patient'"'"'s internal anatomy;
removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy;
automatically identifying a border of said internal structure;
tracking movement of said border;
quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during a selected time frame; and
displaying processed video images representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during said selected time frame, wherein said noise removing step comprises the steps of performing a non-linear gray scale transformation on a captured video image, recursively averaging the transformed video image, and performing a non-linear gray scale morphology operation on said transformed and averaged video image. - View Dependent Claims (26, 27, 28, 29)
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30. A method of imaging internal anatomy of a patient, comprising the steps of:
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capturing a video image of the patient'"'"'s internal anatomy;
removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy;
automatically identifying a border of said internal structure;
tracking movement of said border;
quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during a selected time frame; and
displaying processed video images representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during said selected time frame, wherein said video image is a video image of a patient'"'"'s heart and said step of automatically identifying a border of said internal structure comprises the steps of tagging frames of said video image of the patient'"'"'s heart corresponding to end-diastole (ED frame) and end-systole (ES frame) of a selected cardiac cycle, tracing said border of said heart wall, computing thresholds from the ED frame, and detecting borders of said heart wall for all frames of said selected cardiac cycle using said thresholds. - View Dependent Claims (31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40)
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41. A method of imaging internal anatomy of a patient, comprising the steps of:
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capturing a video image of the patient'"'"'s internal anatomy;
removing noise from said video image while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy;
automatically identifying a border of said internal structure;
tracking movement of said border;
quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during a selected time frame; and
displaying processed video images representative of the extent of motion of at least said border of said internal structure of the patient'"'"'s anatomy during said selected time frame, wherein said video image is a video image of a patient'"'"'s heart, and said step of quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart wall from end-diastole to end-systole during said selected time frame comprising the step of quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border by representing frame to frame movement of said heart wall in a color which is different from a background color of the processing video image displayed on said display. - View Dependent Claims (42)
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43. A method of imaging a patient'"'"'s heart, comprising the steps of:
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capturing respective video images of a patient'"'"'s heart;
removing noise from said video images while enhancing the definition of an internal structure of the patient'"'"'s heart;
automatically identifying a border of said heart;
tracking movement of said border;
quantitating the extent of motion of at least said border of said heart during a selected time frame;
synchronizing said respective video images of the patient'"'"'s heart; and
displaying said synchronized images in a synchronized M frame representation whereby up to M viewing windows may be viewed concurrently, wherein said synchronization step comprises the step of computing target frame counts for systolic and diastolic portions of a cardiac cycle of the patient'"'"'s heart, where the target systolic frames are {square root over (3.6N)} and the target diastolic frames are N minus the target systolic frames, where N is the number of frames in a cardiac cycle of the patient'"'"'s heart having a maximum number of frames in the cardiac cycle. - View Dependent Claims (44, 45, 46)
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Specification