Medical Image Stack Display With Aperture-Based Tile Retrieval
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Solution Overview
Problem
Medical image viewers experience bottlenecks in scrolling speed due to limitations in image load and rendering speeds, which are influenced by network conditions, CPU availability, and image size, leading to slower navigation through image stacks.
Innovation Solution
The method involves designating an aperture for viewing medical image stacks, retrieving high resolution image data within this region and context image data outside the aperture, and displaying a combination of both, while using hash values to minimize data transfer and leveraging progressive image rendering techniques.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If high resolution image data is retrieved and rendered before display, then image quality is improved, but scrolling speed deteriorates due to network and rendering bottlenecks
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the image into multiple tiles and retrieves them in parallel from the server. Instead of loading the entire high-resolution image at once, the client requests and renders individual image tiles concurrently, significantly reducing the time required to display the complete image while maintaining full resolution quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary actions by pre-fetching and caching image tiles before they are actually needed for display. When scrolling through the image, previously fetched tiles are already available in the cache, allowing for seamless transitions without waiting for network retrieval during the scrolling action itself.
2Productivity
If multiple image stacks are scrolled simultaneously, then user productivity is improved, but system resource consumption increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent manages multiple image stacks by segmenting their rendering processes. Each image stack is processed independently with its own set of image tiles being fetched and rendered in parallel. This segmentation allows the system to efficiently allocate resources to multiple stacks without the rendering processes interfering with each other, maintaining performance while handling multiple stacks simultaneously.
3Speed
If fast scrolling is implemented, then user experience is improved, but image rendering quality may deteriorate due to insufficient processing time
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the high-resolution image into multiple smaller tiles that can be fetched and rendered in parallel. This segmentation allows the rendering process to complete each tile quickly without requiring the processing of the entire image sequentially, thus maintaining fast scrolling speeds while ensuring each tile is rendered at full quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates and uses thumbnail copies of images for quick preview during fast scrolling. These lower-resolution copies allow the interface to respond immediately to user scrolling actions, while the full-resolution tiles are fetched and rendered in the background, providing both speed and quality.
Data Source
AI summary
Techniques for medical image stack retrieval from a server and display by a client are presented. The techniques can include: designating an aperture for viewing the medical image stack; retrieving, from the server, high resolution image data for inside a respective aperture region of each of a plurality of images of the medical image stack; retrieving, from the server, context image data for outside the respective aperture region for each of the plurality of images of the medical image stack; and displaying a plurality of display images derived from the plurality of images of the medical image stack, each of the display images comprising a high resolution image portion inside the respective aperture region and a context image portion outside the respective aperture region, where the high resolution image portion corresponds to the high resolution image data and the context image portion corresponds to the context image data.