Advanced automatic digital radiographic hot light method and apparatus

Abstract

A method for automatically modifying the rendering of an image based on an analysis of pixel values within a selected region of interest. The method includes: providing a digital input image of digital pixel values and tone scale look-up table (LUT); creating a default rendered image by applying the tone scale lookup table to the input image; displaying the default rendered image; selecting a region of interest from the input image; computing the histogram of the pixel values within the region of interest; creating a bright light image by remapping the pixel values within the region of interest based on an analysis of the histogram and the tone scale table; wherein the tone scale lookup table has been adjusted by one or more of increasing or decreasing the overall contrast, and of reversing the polarity of the tone scale LUT; and overlaying the bright light image on default rendered image.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]This invention relates in general to image enhancement in digital image processing and more particularly to the enhanced rendering of selected regions of interest to improve the visual presentation of image details, specifically radiographic image details.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Digital medical imaging has become increasingly important in medical imaging practice and has increased productivity for health care professionals who need to utilize images as part of patient care. It is desirable that a user be able to rapidly extract diagnostically useful information from medical images and that any user interaction with the image display be rapid, intuitive and as automated as possible.[0003]One source of medical images is the detection of x-rays projected through a region of interest of a patient so as to measure the x-ray transmittance with an imaging detector such as used in computed radiography and direct digital radiography. Because the digital r...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]According to the present invention, there is provided an improved method for automatically modifying the processing and rendering of a digital radiographic image.

[0014]The invention has some advantages. For example, the context of the original image is maintained by operating only on the selected region of interest, the remainder of the image is unchanged. In addition, the image quality of the selected region of interest is improved over traditional window and level adjustment, because the contrast of the selected region of interest is increased without incurring quantization due to the toe and shoulder of the tone scale look-up table application. The region of interest can be processed by trend removal and / or spatial frequency processing to aid the user in visualizing details and texture that are ordinarily masked. The region of interest can be transformed with a color palette to additionally improve detail visualization. The region of interest can be displayed magnified or in its true size to improve visualization of the ROI image. The ROI overlay(s) can be stored along with the original image so that they can be used for future reference, perhaps identifying key findings within an image.

Problems solved by technology

However, the hot light is of no help in visualizing too light areas and there is no contrast enhancement in the area of interest.

This process requires skill and is time consuming and can result in sub-optimal rendering of the rest of the image.

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