Ultrasound image object boundary localization by intensity histogram classification using relationships among boundaries

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-8995739-B2
Application number	US-201313971905-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 21, 2013
Priority date	Aug 21, 2013
Publication date	Mar 31, 2015
Grant date	Mar 31, 2015

Abstract

Fatty tissue boundary depths and muscle tissue boundary depths are identified in an ultrasound image by first creating an average intensity histogram of the ultrasound image. The histogram has a plurality of peaks, but has the characteristic that one of its peaks corresponds to a fat boundary depth, and a second of its peaks corresponds to a muscle boundary depth. A first classifier based solely on the local-characteristics of individual peaks is used to identify a first fat tissue depth. A second classifier trained to find a muscle depth given a fat depth, receives the output from the first classifier and identifies an output muscle tissue depth relative to the first fat tissue depth. A third classifier trained to find a fat boundary depth given a muscle boundary depth, receives the output muscle tissue depth and outputs a second fat boundary depth.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A system for identifying a first tissue boundary and a second tissue boundary in a test ultrasound image, said second tissue being of a different tissue type than said first tissue, the system comprising:
an input for receiving said test ultrasound image;
a data processing device configured to process said ultrasound image according to the following steps:
(i) generate an intensity histogram from pixel intensities of said test ultrasound image, said inten…

Assignees

• Seiko Epson Corp

Inventors

• Xiao Jing
• Wu Chenyu

Classifications

• G06F18/24

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T7/12 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K9/4647

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06K9/6267

  Physics · mapped topic

• G06T7/0085

  Physics · mapped topic