Intraoral OCT with color texture

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11839448-B2
Application number	US-201716626984-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jun 29, 2017
Priority date	Jun 29, 2017
Publication date	Dec 12, 2023
Grant date	Dec 12, 2023

Abstract

An apparatus for acquiring intraoral images of a subject has an OCT imaging apparatus having an OCT light source, a scanner that conveys OCT light toward the subject and returned from the subject, and an interferometer having a reference arm and a sample arm. A reflectance imaging apparatus has a visible light source directed toward the subject and an image sensor that forms a reflectance image from returned light. Processing and control logic are configured to process and combine the returned reflectance image to the OCT measured data. A display shows the combined reflectance image and OCT measured data.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An apparatus for acquiring intraoral images of a subject comprising:
an OCT imaging apparatus comprising an OCT light source, an interferometer having a reference arm and a sample arm, and a scanner that conveys OCT light toward a plurality of points of the subject and returned from the plurality of points of the subject in the sample arm;
a reflectance imaging apparatus comprising a visible light source to direct visible light toward a subset of the plurality of points of the subject and an image sensor that forms a reflectance image from returned visible light from the subset of the plurality of points, wherein the visible light and returned visible light are conveyed by the scanner;
processing and control logic configured to process and combine the returned reflectance image to OCT measured data from the interferometer at least in part by:
generating a projection image based at least in part on OCT measured data from the interferometer;
generating a rotation matrix and a translation matrix for registering the OCT measured data with the reflectance image;
interpolating, for a plurality of pixels of the OCT measured data, a final color texture based at least in part on one or more color values of pixels of the reflectance image registered with neighboring pixels; and

a display that shows the combined reflectance image and OCT measured data reflecting the final color texture.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the processing and control logic is further configured to register the returned reflectance image to the OCT measured data based on operations of the scanner.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the OCT imaging apparatus is a swept-source OCT imaging apparatus or the OCT light source is a wide-bandwidth light source.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the scanner determines an optical path to the subject.

5. An apparatus for acquiring intraoral images comprising:
an OCT imaging apparatus comprising an OCT light source, a scanner, and an interferometer having a reference arm and a sample arm, wherein the OCT imaging apparatus is configured to generate a 3D OCT volume having pixel dimensions L×M×N;
a reflectance imaging apparatus comprising a visible light source and a color image sensor, wherein the reflectance imaging apparatus is configured to generate a 2D color image having pixel dimensions L×M;
combining optics that combine the OCT light source and visible light directed toward a 2D arrangement of a plurality of points of an intraoral feature onto the same optical path for projection onto the intraoral feature and that separate the visible light primary components from the OCT light for light returning from the intraoral feature to separately obtain OCT measured data and corresponding color reflectance image data in sequence and correlated for plurality of the 2D arrangement of points of the intraoral feature;
processing and control logic configured to process and combine the returned color reflectance image data and the OCT measured data to overlay the L×M×N OCT volume with the L×M 2D color image to create an overlaid image; and
a display that shows the combined color reflectance image and OCT measured data.

6. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the combining optics provide laser diode visible light.

7. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the same optical path includes the scanner.

8. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the combining optics comprise a fiber combiner, a beam splitter, or beam splitter prism.

9. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the processing and control logic is configured to process and combine the returned color reflectance image data and an OCT surface detected in the OCT measured data.

10. The apparatus of claim 5 wherein the combining optics comprise a wave division multiplexer or a grating.

11. A method for acquiring image data comprising:
obtaining, for an intraoral surface sample, optical coherence tomography (OCT) data having L×M×N pixel dimensions;
acquiring reflectance image content from the intraoral surface sample having L×M pixel dimensions;
combining the reflectance image and OCT data content based at least in part on pixel locations within each of the reflectance image and the OCT data content;
rendering the combined reflectance image and OCT data content in a single image on a display;
registering the reflectance image content to the OCT data by projecting a 3D volume generated from the OCT data to form a 2D grayscale image; and
interpolating RGB color with surrounding values from the nearest neighbor pixels.

12. The method of claim 11 further comprising correcting distortion in the 2D grayscale image or applying rotation and translation to the 2D grayscale image or the reflectance image.

13. The method of claim 11 wherein the OCT data is obtained using an OCT imaging apparatus comprising an OCT light source, a scanner, and an interferometer having a reference arm and a sample arm, and wherein the OCT data and the acquired reflectance image content from the intraoral feature are conveyed by the scanner.

14. The method of claim 11 wherein spectral ranges of the OCT and reflectance image content are non-overlapping.

15. The method of claim 11 wherein combining the reflectance image and OCT data content comprises mapping color values of the reflectance image to corresponding points on a surface extracted from the OCT data.

16. The method of claim 11 wherein detection of the acquired reflectance image content is performed at an OCT spectrometer in an OCT signal detector that separates color reflectance image data to the OCT data.

17. The method of claim 11 wherein OCT light for the OCT data and reflectance light for the acquired reflectance image content are separately obtained and correlated for a 2D arrangement of a plurality of points for the intraoral surface sample.

Assignees

• Carestream Dental Tech Topco Ltd
• Dental Imaging Technologies Corp

Inventors

• Fan Chuanmao
• Wong Victor C
• Inglese Jean-Marc

Classifications

• G06T11/10

  Texturing; Colouring; Generation of textures or colours (retouching, inpainting or scratch removal G06T5/77) · CPC title

• A61B5/0066 Primary

  Optical coherence imaging · CPC title

• A61B5/0088

  for oral or dental tissue · CPC title

• G01B9/02091

  Tomographic interferometers, e.g. based on optical coherence · CPC title

• G02B6/34

  utilising prism or grating {(G02B6/293 takes precedence)} · CPC title