Method and device for water-fat separation of image, computer apparatus, and computer-readable storage medium

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12455335-B2
Application number	US-202318200537-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	May 22, 2023
Priority date	May 24, 2022
Publication date	Oct 28, 2025
Grant date	Oct 28, 2025

Abstract

Method and device for water-fat separation of image, computer apparatus, and computer-readable storage medium. The method includes: obtaining plurality of echo images of a target object; obtaining an initial water and fat distribution image of the target object; determining a first error phasor candidate and a second error phasor candidate, the first error phasor candidate being used to characterize an error phasor of each element corresponding to water occupying a major constituent, and the second error phasor candidate being used to characterize an error phasor of each element corresponding to fat occupying a major constituent; determining an initial-guess of error phasor corresponding to each element in the plurality of echo images among the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate based on the initial water and fat distribution image; determining an optimal error phasor based on the initial-guess of the error phasor; and acquiring a water image and a fat image of the target object from the plurality of echo images according to the optimal error phasor.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1 . A method for water-fat separation of image, comprising:
obtaining a plurality of echo images of a target object; obtaining an initial water and fat distribution image of the target object; determining a first error phasor candidate and a second error phasor candidate, the first error phasor candidate being used to represent an error phasor of each element corresponding to water occupying a major constituent in the element, and the second error phasor candidate being used to represent an error phasor of each element corresponding to fat occupying a major constituent in the element; determining an initial-guess of error phasor corresponding to each element in the plurality of echo images among the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate based on the initial water and fat distribution image; and determining an optimal error phasor based on the initial-guess of the error phasor, and acquiring a water image and a fat image of the target object from the plurality of echo images according to the optimal error phasor.

2 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 1 , wherein the acquiring the initial water and fat distribution image of the target object comprises:
performing a tissue segmentation on the plurality of echo images to obtain a plurality of tissue-segmented images; and determining water-fat ratios of each element in the plurality of tissue-segmented images according to prior knowledge of water-fat ratios of various tissues, to obtain the initial water and fat distribution image.

3 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 1 , wherein the acquiring the initial water and fat distribution image of the target object comprises:
obtaining fat-suppressed images of the target object; and comparing the plurality of echo images with the fat-suppressed images to obtain the initial water and fat distribution image.

4 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate comprises:
determining a first amplitude candidate and a second amplitude candidate of water and fat signals of the target object based on the plurality of echo images and a predefined water-fat signal model; and calculating the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate according to the first amplitude candidate, the second amplitude candidate, and the predefined water-fat signal model.

5 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate comprises:
determining the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate by using a variable projection algorithm and a maximum likelihood estimation, the plurality of echo images comprising at least three echo images.

6 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 1 , wherein the determining the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate comprises:
determining the first error phasor candidate and the second error phasor candidate by solving a triangle, the plurality of echo images comprising two echo images.

7 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 4 , wherein the plurality of echo images comprise an in-phase image, and a partially-opposed-phase image.

8 . The method for water-fat separation of image of claim 7 , wherein the first amplitude candidate and the second amplitude candidate of the water and fat signals of the target object are determined based on the plurality of echo images and the predefined water-fat signal model to be:

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Assignees

• Shanghai United Imaging Healthcare Co Ltd

Inventors

• Tong Li
• Sun Tao
• Xin Yang

Classifications

• G06T5/70

  Denoising; Smoothing · CPC title

• G06T7/0012

  Biomedical image inspection · CPC title

• G06T2207/10088

  Magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] · CPC title

• G06T2200/04

  involving 3D image data · CPC title

• G06T7/11

  Region-based segmentation · CPC title