Disease diagnostic apparatus, image processing method in the same apparatus, and medium storing program associated with the same method

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016133010-A1
Application number	US-201514860603-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Sep 21, 2015
Priority date	Nov 7, 2014
Publication date	May 12, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The invention provides a method of processing an image in a diagnostic apparatus 100 of diagnosing a disease using a captured image of an affected area, comprising: a separating step of separating the captured image into a brightness component and a color information component; and an extracting step of extracting a region to be diagnosed based on the brightness component or the color information component of the configured image to highlight likeness of the region.

First claim

1 . A method of processing an image in a diagnostic apparatus of diagnosing a disease using a captured image of an affected area, comprising:
a separating step of separating the captured image into a brightness component and a color information component; and an extracting step of extracting a region to be diagnosed based on the brightness component or the color information component of the configured image to highlight likeness of the region.

2 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the region is a vessel-corresponding region.

3 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the region is a vessel-corresponding region, and wherein the likeness of the region is likeness of a vessel.

4 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein:
in the separating step, the captured image is converted from a RGB color space to a Lab color space to be separated into a L component as the brightness component and an ab component as the color information component; and in the extracting step, the region to be diagnosed is extracted based on the L component and the ab component.

5 . The method according to claim 4 , wherein in the extracting step a vascular region is extracted as a likelihood V from the converted, captured image of the Lab color space.

6 . The method according to claim 4 , wherein in the extracting step a vascular region is extracted as a likelihood V from the converted, captured image of the Lab color space, wherein the likelihood V is defined as:
V= 1−exp(( K.̂ 2)/2*σ̂2))
in the above formula, K is defined as:
K=sqrt (λ1.*λ1+λ2.*λ2)

in the above formula, “σ” is an adjustment coefficient; “sqrt ( )” means a square root of each element; and λ1 and λ2 are real numbers indicating characteristic values of Hessian matrix for each pixel.

7 . The method according to claim 5 , wherein the likelihood V indicates likeness of a vessel.

8 . The method according to claim 7 , wherein in the extracting step if a vessel having a plurality of sizes is detected, the likelihood V is determined by an adjustment coefficient σ corresponding to the size of the vessel, and a maximum V is selected per a pixel.

9 . The method according to claim 1 , wherein the extracting step further comprises combining an extracted result for the region with a background image to generate a reconstructed image.

10 . The method according to claim 9 , wherein the background image is at least one selected from a group consisting of the captured image, a grayscale image of the captured image, a contrast-highlighted image of the captured image, and a brightness component-highlighted image that is obtained by separating the brightness component of the captured image into a base component and a detail component and performing a highlighting process on the base component and the detail component in a different manner.

11 . A diagnostic apparatus of diagnosing a disease using a captured image of an affected area, comprising:
an image-memorizing unit configured to memorize the captured image; and a processing unit configured to process the captured image memorized in the image-memorizing unit, the processing unit comprising: a separating means configured to separate the captured image into a brightness component and a color information component, and an extracting means configured to extract a region to be diagnosed based on the brightness component or the color information component of the configured image to highlight likeness of the region.

12 . A non-transitory computer readable medium storing a program of processing an image in a diagnostic apparatus of diagnosing a disease using a captured image of an affected area, the program causing a computer to execute:
a separating step of separating the captured image memorized into a brightness component and a color information component; and an extracting step of extracting a region to be diagnosed based on the brightness component or the color information component of the configured image to highlight likeness of the region.

Assignees

• Casio Computer Co Ltd

Inventors

• Hamada Akira
• Nakajima Mitsuyasu
• Tanaka Masaru
• Sato Toshitsugu

Classifications

• G06T2207/10024

  Color image · CPC title

• G06T7/0081

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T2207/30096

  Tumor; Lesion · CPC title

• G06T7/0012 Primary

  Biomedical image inspection · CPC title

• G06T2207/30088

  Skin; Dermal · CPC title