Method of processing image data

• US 7,936,947 B1
• Filed: 04/14/2005
• Issued: 05/03/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 04/14/2004
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Imperial Innovations Limited (Imperial College London), Trustees of Boston University
• Original Assignee: Imperial Innovations Limited (Imperial College London)
• Inventors: Rueckert, Daniel, Bhatia, Kanwal Kaur
• Primary Examiner(s): Kassa; Yosef
• Application Number:
  US11/547,756
• Time in Patent Office: 2,210 Days
• Field of Search: 382/128, 382/130, 382/131
• US Class Current: 382/294
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30016 Brain
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/18 Image warping, e.g. rearranging pixels individually
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/32 using correlation-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/38 Registration of image sequences
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 10/758 Involving statistics of pixels or of feature values, e.g. histogram matching

Abstract

A method of processing image data for registration of multiple images to a common reference space comprising the step of computing a mapping between each image and a common reference image comprising an average of all of the images.

Claims

1. A method of processing image data to register at least two subject images comprising the steps of:

computing a direct mapping between each subject image and a common reference image comprising an average of the subject images, wherein each mapping includes a deformation and the mappings are constrained such that the sum of the deformations of all subject images is minimized; and

outputting said direct mapping to an output device.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1 in which the sum of the deformations of all subject images is zero.

3. The method as claimed in claim 1 in which the mappings are computed such that the similarity of the mapped images is maximized.

4. The method as claimed in claim 3 in which similarity is maximized using normalized mutual information.

5. The method as claimed in claim 1 in which the mappings include a free form deformation step.

6. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing principal component analysis on each computed mapping.

7. The method of claim 1 further comprising performing image recognition on a mapped image.

8. A computer-readable medium with a computer program recorded thereon, the computer program comprising computer code instructions for implementing a method of processing image data to register at least two subject images, wherein said computer program medium comprises:

a first computer code instruction portion for computing a direct mapping between each subject image and a common reference image comprising an average of the subject images, wherein each mapping includes a deformation and the mappings are constrained such that the sum of the deformations of all subject images is minimized; and

a second computer code instruction portion for outputting said direct mapping to an output device.

9. A system for processing image data to register at least two subject images comprising:

a computer system that includes a processor, wherein said processor is configured for;

computing a direct mapping between each subject image and a common reference image comprising an average of the subject images, wherein each mapping includes a deformation and the mappings are constrained such that the sum of the deformations of all subject images is minimized; and

outputting said direct mapping to an output device.