Interactive Medical Image Stitching Interface
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current digital radiography systems face challenges in creating accurate composite images of large anatomies due to variability in image quality, patient motion, and system errors, leading to misaligned images that reduce diagnostic quality.
Innovation Solution
An interactive user interface is provided for managing digital medical images, allowing users to display and align individual images, modify their size, location, and intensity, and regenerate composite images based on marked points, enabling accurate realignment and correction of misalignments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of time
If automatic composite image creation is used, then operator time is reduced, but image alignment accuracy deteriorates due to patient motion, imperfect positioning, and system errors
Solution Approach 1:
The system displays the composite image with visible seam indicators that provide feedback to the operator about alignment quality. The seam visibility allows operators to identify misalignment issues and manually adjust the stitching parameters, creating a feedback loop that maintains accuracy while preserving automated processing benefits.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces an intermediary manual review and adjustment step between automatic composite creation and final image output. This intermediary process allows operators to correct alignment issues using the seam visibility feedback without completely redoing the automated stitching, thus maintaining time efficiency while improving accuracy.
2Area of stationary object
If multiple individual exposures are taken to cover large anatomies, then the anatomy can be fully imaged, but image quality variability and magnification differences increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies different processing parameters to different regions of the composite image. By detecting anatomical features and exposure characteristics in each individual image, the system can locally adjust magnification, contrast, and brightness parameters to ensure consistent diagnostic quality across the entire large anatomy while preserving the benefits of multiple exposures.
3Measurement precision
If manual alignment of individual images is performed, then alignment accuracy can be improved, but operator time and complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system creates a preliminary automated copy of the composite image that serves as a starting point for manual refinement. Operators work with this pre-aligned copy rather than aligning from scratch, significantly reducing the time required for manual adjustment while maintaining the ability to achieve high alignment accuracy when needed.
Data Source
AI summary
An interactive user interface (UI) for managing digital medical images is disclosed. The UI includes a first display panel for displaying more than one of the digital medical images and a point on each digital medical image located in associated regions for stitching pairs of the digital medical images together, and a second display panel for displaying a composite image comprising the stitched digital medical images. The UI provides means for a user to modify the location of the points and means for applying an algorithm to regenerate the composite image in response to the location of the points.