Method and system for estimating motion between images, particularly in ultrasound spatial compounding

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10679349-B2
Application number	US-201715596615-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 16, 2017
Priority date	Jun 8, 2016
Publication date	Jun 9, 2020
Grant date	Jun 9, 2020

Abstract

A corresponding system is also disclosed.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A computer-implemented method for estimating motion between images associated with a common region of interest, the method comprising:
providing frames including a reference frame and a target frame that correspond to respective images and have pixels;
for a macro-block corresponding to a substantial majority of the pixels of the reference frame, estimating a global motion vector between the reference frame and the target frame;
for each of a plurality of blocks that are corresponding portions of pixels in the reference frame, estimating respective local motion vectors between the reference frame and the target frame based on the global motion vector to form globally adjusted local motion vectors;
considering the globally adjusted local motion vectors as motion estimator.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein motion-compensated images, particularly compound images, are generated by combining the reference and target frames based on the globally adjusted local motion vectors.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the estimating global motion vector includes calculating a function correlating a macro-block in the reference frame with a plurality of candidate displacements of the macro-block in the target frame and optimizing such function to identify which of the displacements estimates the global motion vector.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the estimating local motion vectors includes calculating a function correlating a block of the reference frame with a plurality of candidate displacements of the block in the target frame and optimizing such function to identify which of the displacements estimates the local motion vector, the function comprising a distance relation between the candidate displacement and the global motion vector.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the function to estimate global and/or local motion vectors is a sum of absolute differences to be minimized or a normalized cross-correlation to be maximized.

6. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the determining global motion vector operation includes calculating a cost function between a macro-block in the reference frame and a plurality of displacements of the macro-block in the target frame and adjusting the function by a term that depends on the distance between the null displacement and the candidate displacement.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the function to estimate global and/or local motion vectors is modified by introducing a term related to an unnatural pattern of motion.

8. The method according to claim 7 , wherein the term is based on the outcome of a processing operation of a number of motion values in the reference and the target frames to detect artifacts that are not present in a natural motion pattern.

9. A method according to claim 1 , wherein the frames are frames of ultrasound data acquired with an ultrasound system at an ultrasound probe having a transducer array.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the images are video images.

11. A method for generating a motion-compensated compound image with an ultrasound system, the method comprising:
acquiring frames of ultrasound data at an ultrasound probe having a transducer array, the frames including a reference frame and a target frame associated with a common region of interest;
for a macro-block corresponding to a substantial majority of the reference frame, estimating a global motion vector between the reference frame and the target frame;
for each of a plurality of blocks that are corresponding portions of pixels in the reference frame, estimating respective local motion vectors between the reference frame and the target frame based on the global motion vector to form globally adjusted local motion vectors; and
combining the reference and target frames based on the globally adjusted local motion vectors to form a compound image.

12. A method according to claim 11 , wherein a term correcting unnatural pattern of motion, typically due to the varying insonation angle used for subsequent frames in spatial compounding, is introduced in the function for estimating global and/or local motion.

13. A computer product directly loadable into the memory of a digital computer and comprising software code portions for performing the method according to claim 1 when the product is run on a computer.

14. An ultrasound system for performing motion-compensated compound imaging, the system comprising:
an ultrasound probe having a transducer array to acquire ultrasound data;
a beamformer to form frames from the ultrasound data, the frames including a reference frame and a target frame associated with a common region of interest;
circuitry configured to:
for a macro-block corresponding to a substantial majority of the reference frame, estimate a global motion vector between the reference frame and the target frame;
for each of a plurality of blocks that are corresponding portions of pixels in the reference frame, estimate respective local motion vectors between the reference frame and the target frame based on the global motion vector to form globally adjusted local motion vectors; and
combine the reference and target frames based on the globally adjusted local motion vectors to form a compound image.

15. The system according to claim 14 , wherein the circuitry comprises one or more processors that, when executing program instructions, are configured to perform at least one of the estimate, adjust and combine operations.

16. The system of claim 14 , wherein the estimating operation includes calculating by the circuitry a function correlating a block of the reference frame with a plurality of candidate displacements of the block in the target frame and optimizing such function to identify which of the displacements estimates the motion vector, the function for estimating local motion vectors comprising a distance relation between the candidate displacement and the global motion vector.

17. The system according to claim 14 , wherein the estimating operation includes calculating by the circuitry a sum of absolute differences (SAD) or a normalized cross-correlation (NCC) between a reference block in the reference frame and the candidate blocks in the target frame and utilizing the SAD that has a minimum value and/or the NCC that has a maximum value to estimate the global motion vector.

18. The system according to claim 14 , wherein the circuitry is configured to perform the method according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Esaote Spa

Inventors

• Nicolardi Paolo
• Semplici Paolo

Classifications

• G06T7/231

  using full search · CPC title

• G01S7/52077

  with means for elimination of unwanted signals, e.g. noise or interference · CPC title

• G06T2207/30004

  Biomedical image processing · CPC title

• G06T2207/20012

  Locally adaptive · CPC title

• G06T7/10 Primary

  Segmentation; Edge detection (motion-based segmentation G06T7/215) · CPC title