HK1229672A - An imaging method - Google Patents

Description

Imaging method

Technical Field

The invention relates to the technical field of image processing, in particular to an imaging method.

Background

In the X-ray imaging method, an X-ray beam is irradiated onto a region, and an image in the entire region is formed by projection. Similarly, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computed Tomography (CT) systems acquire data required in a certain region and reconstruct an image of the entire region.

In some imaging modalities, such as ultrasound imaging, optical coherence tomography, terahertz imaging, and the like, imaging generally has one-dimensional to three-dimensional phases, such as single localization, two-dimensional (2D) images, and three-dimensional (3D) images. With some types of scanning, such as manual, mechanical or electronic scanning, a large number of low-dimensional images can be acquired for constructing a high-dimensional image, for example, from 2D to 3D. This is generally a time consuming procedure, especially when the scan range is large (as opposed to a single frame imaging window). Thus, these imaging modalities are incremental in nature. However, the incremental image features are not visible for most of the imaging time, since the device shows a complete image after the sub-dimensional image acquisition. Meanwhile, it takes a long time, i.e., it takes a long time to form a 3D ultrasound image in a wide range using a probe used in 2D imaging.

Currently, there are some methods for incremental imaging, but these methods aim to provide for the rapid or real-time display of the reconstructed partial volume in an incremental manner, e.g. by incrementally presenting the volume image after acquiring each B-mode or a large number of B-mode images throughout the scan, rather than performing the image reconstruction after acquiring all the required data, since it usually takes a relatively long time to perform the image reconstruction after acquiring all the required data. In aspects of reconstructing and displaying incremental volumes, some methods may also provide three-dimensional orthogonal views. However, the prior art does not address the principle of incremental imaging based on objects, and for either imaging, the most important is the object imaged, such as a tumor and spinal structure in an ultrasound image.

Disclosure of Invention

The technical problem to be solved by the invention is to provide an imaging method aiming at the defects of the prior art, and relates to incremental imaging based on a target.

The technical scheme of the invention for solving the problems is to provide an imaging method, which is characterized by comprising the following steps:

s1, determining the target by identifying the position information or the characteristic information related to the target;

s2, carrying out two-dimensional scanning on the target to acquire image data of the target in a three-dimensional space;

s3, processing the image data and the corresponding spatial information in real time in the scanning process to obtain a plurality of image contents of the target, and displaying the image contents in real time;

and S4, arranging the image contents in an increasing order to form the target image.

In the imaging method of the present invention, the imaging method further comprises:

when it is monitored that a certain part in the image of the object is not imaged or the image quality of the certain part in the image of the object is poor, the part is enabled to have better image quality by rescanning the part.

In the imaging method of the present invention, in step S4, before arranging the plurality of image contents in an increasing order, the method further includes performing image uniformization and filtering operations between adjacent image contents.

In the imaging method of the present invention, in the step S4, the increasing order is determined by the scanning order of the object.

In the imaging method of the present invention, in the step S3, the method further includes displaying the image content within a preset time.

In the imaging method of the present invention, in the step S1, the method further includes determining a plurality of targets having different feature information.

In the imaging method of the present invention, the imaging method further includes:

if a plurality of different targets exist, the plurality of different targets are scanned in a conversion mode in the scanning process.

The invention has the following beneficial effects: the method can avoid collecting useless image information, reduce the time for acquiring image data and accelerate the imaging speed. Meanwhile, in the present invention, two-dimensional scanning is employed based on the target to form a three-dimensional image at the time of scanning, further reducing the time consumed for imaging. In addition, in the scanning process, the image content of the target is displayed in real time so as to improve the quality of the image, and when the quality of the image is poor, the whole target does not need to be rescanned until the scanning and reconstruction are finished, so that the imaging time is further reduced.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of an imaging method of an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is an exemplary diagram of an object in an imaging method of an embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 3 is an incremental spine image obtained by applying the imaging method of the present invention to ultrasound imaging.

Detailed Description

The invention provides an imaging method. The imaging method comprises the steps of firstly determining a target, then processing image data and corresponding spatial information of the target in real time in the scanning process based on the target to obtain image content of the target, displaying the image content of the target in real time, and arranging the obtained image content of the target in an incremental mode to form an image of the target. Meanwhile, in the present invention, two-dimensional scanning is employed based on the target to form a three-dimensional image at the time of scanning, further reducing the time consumed for imaging. In addition, in the scanning process, the image content of the target is displayed in real time so as to improve the quality of the image, and when the quality of the image is poor, the whole target does not need to be rescanned until the scanning and reconstruction are finished, so that the imaging time is further reduced.

In order to make the objects, technical solutions and advantages of the present invention more apparent, the present invention is described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments. It should be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not intended to limit the invention.

As shown in fig. 1, is a flow chart of an imaging method of an embodiment of the present invention, the method including the steps of:

s101, determining a target by identifying position information or characteristic information related to the target;

in this step, position information or feature information is predefined, wherein the position information is recorded by a known spatial localization technique, and the target is located in a three-dimensional space, for example, a tumor in a breast, a liver in a human body, a bone in a limb, a spine in a body, a plane or a curved surface in a human body, as shown in fig. 2, which is an exemplary diagram of the target in the imaging method according to the embodiment of the present invention, 1 represents a three-dimensional space in which the target is located, and in fig. 2(a), 2 is a rectangular parallelepiped; in fig. 2(b), the target 2 is a curved body; in fig. 2(c), the target 2 is a plane; in fig. 2(d), the target 2 is a curved surface; in fig. 2(e), the target 2 is a cylinder. The target is also located in a two-dimensional space, such as diseased tissue in an X-ray image.

S102, performing two-dimensional scanning on the target to acquire image data of the target in a three-dimensional space;

in this step, the scanning mode may adopt manual scanning or mechanical assisted manual scanning.

S103, processing the image data and the corresponding spatial information in real time in the scanning process to obtain a plurality of image contents of the target, and displaying the image contents in real time;

in this step, the image content is a partial image of the target, and the real-time processing includes processing immediately after each captured image data, without waiting for all images to be captured before processing, wherein the image data includes one or several frames of images. The processing mode comprises pixel brightness post-processing, image smoothing and noise removal, wherein the pixel brightness post-processing comprises threshold window processing of gray level enhancement, in order to increase the contrast of an image, a gray level threshold window is selected for enhancement, the gray levels outside the gray level threshold window are compressed or omitted, so that an object can be displayed on the image in a prominent mode, the identification power of the object is improved, and the gray levels are enhanced by adopting linear transformation generally; the image is smoothed by an averaging method, namely low-pass filtering; the noise removal may adopt an averaging method, including time averaging, spatial compounding, frequency fusion, and the like, which belongs to the prior art and is not described herein again. In this embodiment, the real-time processing further includes performing image reconstruction on image content in the same or adjacent space immediately after each frame or several frames of images are obtained to obtain image content representing the position and displaying the image content at the corresponding spatial position in real time, where the image reconstruction includes averaging.

And S104, arranging the image contents in an increasing mode to form the target image.

Before arranging a plurality of images in an increasing mode, the method further comprises that correlation processing can be carried out between adjacent image contents to obtain better images, and the correlation processing comprises image homogenization and filtering operation and also comprises image fusion on the edges of the adjacent image contents.

In this embodiment, the image contents are arranged in increasing order, which is determined by the scanning order of the objects.

In this embodiment, in the scanning process, after the determined image content is processed in real time, the image content within the preset time may also be displayed, and then the image contents within the preset times are arranged in an increasing manner according to the scanning sequence to form the image of the target. The reference point of the preset time may be some rhythmic physiological signals of the human body, such as electrocardiosignals of the human body. Of course, before arranging the image contents within a plurality of preset times in an incremental manner, the adjacent image contents may also be subjected to correlation processing, and as for this portion, the above description is omitted here for brevity.

In this embodiment, the imaging method further includes:

when it is monitored that the formed part of the object is not imaged or the formed part of the object has poor image quality, the part is rescanned and then the step S103 is performed to make the part have better image quality. The interaction step, i.e. monitoring, can be either manual or computer monitoring. In such a case, there is no need to re-scan the entire target when scanning and reconstruction are complete, thereby reducing the imaging time.

In this embodiment, the imaging method further comprises determining a plurality of targets having different characteristic information to be incrementally imaged during the scan.

In this embodiment, the imaging method further includes:

if there are multiple different targets, the scanned targets may be transformed during the scanning process.

For the imaging method provided by the present invention, the following will describe in detail the application of the imaging method to ultrasound imaging, and the B-mode ultrasound image of the back of the human body from the bottom to the top is acquired.

First, an object is determined, wherein the object is a plane defined by a curved projection of the relevant spinal morphology at a certain depth below the skin of the back surface.

Secondly, scanning is carried out by using an ultrasonic probe in an ultrasonic imaging system, the back of a human body is scanned, the main body part of the ultrasonic imaging system adopts the imaging method, and an incremental spine image as shown in fig. 3 is obtained, as seen from left to right in the figure, the incremental spine image is respectively the image content displayed in real time in the scanning process and comprises a first image 31, a second image 32, a third image 33, a fourth image 34 and a fifth image 35, and the latter images respectively comprise the former image, namely the image content is arranged in an incremental manner, and a complete spine image (namely the fifth image 35) is formed.

The imaging method of the present invention can also be applied to other imaging modes with scanning.

In summary, the imaging method of the present invention obtains the image content of the target by determining the target, then processing the image data of the target and the corresponding spatial information in real time during the scanning process based on the target, and displays the image content of the target in real time, and arranges the obtained image content of the target in an incremental manner to form the image of the target, so that the imaging method of the present invention reduces the time for obtaining the image data, and accelerates the imaging speed.

The above description is only for the preferred embodiment of the present invention, but the scope of the present invention is not limited thereto, and any changes or substitutions that can be easily conceived by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present invention are included in the scope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of the present invention shall be subject to the protection scope of the claims.

Claims (7)

1. An imaging method, characterized in that the method comprises the steps of:

s1, determining the target by identifying the position information or the characteristic information related to the target;

s2, carrying out two-dimensional scanning on the target to acquire image data of the target in a three-dimensional space;

s3, processing the image data and the corresponding spatial information in real time in the scanning process to obtain a plurality of image contents of the target, and displaying the image contents in real time;

and S4, arranging the image contents in an increasing order to form the target image.

2. The imaging method as set forth in claim 1, characterized in that the imaging method further includes:

when it is monitored that a certain part in the image of the object is not imaged or the image quality of the certain part in the image of the object is poor, the part is enabled to have better image quality by rescanning the part.

3. The imaging method according to claim 1, further comprising performing image homogenization and filtering operations between adjacent image contents in step S4 before arranging the plurality of image contents in increasing order.

4. The imaging method according to claim 1, wherein in the step S4, the order of increasing is decided by a scanning order of the object.

5. The imaging method according to claim 1, wherein in the step S3, further comprising displaying the image content within a preset time.

6. The imaging method according to claim 1, further comprising determining a plurality of targets having different feature information in the step S1.

7. The imaging method as set forth in claim 6, further comprising:

if a plurality of different targets exist, the plurality of different targets are scanned in a conversion mode in the scanning process.