Assembling multiple medical images into a single film image

• US 8,565,552 B2
• Filed: 11/14/2007
• Issued: 10/22/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Codonics Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Codonics Incorporated
• Inventors: Sommer, Erica Anastasia, Audino, Jeremy Franklin, Harley, Christopher Michael
• Primary Examiner(s): ENTEZARI, MICHELLE M
• Application Number:
  US11/985,210
• Publication Number:
  US 20080118141A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,169 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 382/284
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30004 Biomedical image processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 3/4038 Image mosaicing, e.g. composing plane images from plane sub-images

Abstract

A printer receives a plurality of image sections and corresponding image headers from the host as an image concatenation command. The plurality of image sections store the plurality of image sections in a print queue. The printer creates a virtual canvas representing a full image size. The printer determines how many lines of uniform data are present in a top border and a bottom border of the plurality of image sections. A variable formatting module of the printer crops a bottom border of a first image section to create a cropped first image section and a top border of a last image section to create a cropped last image section. The variable formatting module creates a first image frame in the virtual canvas corresponding to the first image section minus the bottom border and a last image frame corresponding to the last image section minus the top border.

Claims

1. A method of image concatenation, comprising:

receiving an image concatenation command from a host device to instruct a printer to receive a plurality of image sections;

receiving the plurality of image sections and corresponding image headers from the host associated with the image concatenation command and storing the plurality of image sections in a print queue;

creating a virtual canvas and varying a size of the virtual canvas based at least in part on a quantity of image sections included in the plurality of image sections that are to be arranged to form a concatenated image, thereby establishing a full image size after receiving the image concatenation command;

determining a quantity of lines of uniform data present outside of an image area of the plurality of image sections at a top section, at a bottom section, or at both a top section and a bottom section of the plurality of image sections to identify a dimension of a top border, a bottom border, or both a top border and a bottom border comprising the uniform data for each of the plurality of image sections;

forming the concatenated image by arranging the plurality of image sections adjacent to each other along the virtual canvas to substantially eliminate the lines of uniform data between the plurality of image sections arranged on the virtual canvas and provide the concatenated image with an appearance of a single, essentially continuous image that spans the plurality of image sections arranged on the virtual canvas; and

transmitting the concatenated image to be printed onto one sheet of a print medium.

2. The method of claim 1, further including cropping a bottom border of a first image section to create a cropped first image section and a top border of a last image section to create a cropped last image section.

3. The method of claim 1, further including creating a first image frame in the virtual canvas corresponding to the first image section minus the bottom border and a last image frame corresponding to the last image section minus the top border.

4. The method of claim 3, further including:

placing the first image section into first image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the first image section and eliminates the bottom border, and

placing the last image section into the last image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the last image section and eliminates the top border of the last image section.

5. The method of claim 4, further including printing a concatenated image on a single elongated film medium which represents the virtual canvas including the first image frame and the last image frame.

6. The method of claim 2, further including

creating a first image frame in the virtual canvas corresponding to the first image section minus the bottom border, a second image frame in the virtual canvas corresponding to the second image section minus a top border and a bottom border, and a last image frame corresponding to the last image section minus the top border.

7. The method of claim 6, further including

placing the first image section into the first image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the first image section and eliminates the bottom border,

placing the second image section into the second image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the second image section and eliminates the top border and bottom border of the second image section;

and

placing the last image section into the last image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the last image section and eliminates the top border of the last image section.

8. The method of claim 7, further including printing the concatenated image which represents the virtual canvas including at least the first image frame, the second image frame and the last image frame.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the image area of each of the image sections comprises a different portion of an object to be printed, and the appearance of the concatenated image comprises the object, essentially in its entirety, collectively formed from the image areas of the plurality of image sections arranged on the virtual canvas.

9. A program code storage device, comprising:

a non-transitory computer-readable medium;

computer-readable program code, stored on the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the computer-readable program code having instructions, which when executed cause a printer that is operatively connected to a host device to receive a plurality of image sections from the host device and print a concatenated image that comprises content combined from an image area of each of the plurality of image sections onto an elongated film medium to;

receive a concatenation command from the host device to instruct the printer to receive the plurality of image sections;

receive the plurality of image sections and corresponding image headers from the host corresponding to the image concatenation command and storing the plurality of image sections in a print queue;

create a virtual canvas and vary a size of the virtual canvas based at least in part on a quantity of image sections included in the plurality of image sections to be arranged to form a concatenated image and establish a full image size after receiving the image concatenation command; and

determine how many lines of uniform data are present at a top section, at a bottom section, or at both a top section and a bottom section of each the plurality of image sections which identifies a top border, a bottom border, or both a top border and a bottom border for each of the plurality of image sections.

10. The program code storage device of claim 9, including instructions which when executed cause the printer to crop a bottom border of a first image section to create a cropped first image section and a top border of a last image section to create a cropped last image section.

11. The program code storage device of claim 9, including instructions which when executed cause the printer to create a first image frame in the virtual canvas corresponding to the first image section minus the bottom border and a last image frame corresponding to the last image section minus the top border.

12. The program code storage device of claim 11, including instructions which when executed cause the printer to:

place the first image section into first image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the first image section and eliminates the bottom border, and

place the last image section into the last image frame in the virtual canvas which effectively crops lines of uniform data from the last image section and eliminates the top border of the last image section.

13. The program code storage device of claim 12, including instructions which when executed cause the printer to print a concatenated image which represents the virtual canvas including the first image frame and the last image frame.

14. A method of image concatenation, comprising:

receiving an image concatenation command from a host device to instruct a printer to receive a plurality of image sections, wherein the image concatenation command is a single term that lacks spaces and includes information indicative of a quantity of the image sections that are to be received and concatenated into a concatenated image;

receiving the plurality of image sections and corresponding image headers from the host associated with the image concatenation command and storing the plurality of image sections in a print queue;

creating a virtual canvas representing a full image size based at least in part on the quantity of the image sections indicated by the image concatenation command after receiving the image concatenation command; and

determining how many lines of uniform data are present outside of an image area of the plurality of image sections at a top section, at a bottom section, or at both a top section and a bottom section of the plurality of image sections to identify a dimension of a top border, a bottom border, or both a top border and a bottom border comprising the uniform data for each of the plurality of image sections.