Medical thermal image processing for subcutaneous detection of veins, bones and the like

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9552629-B2
Application number	US-201414655070-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 16, 2014
Priority date	Oct 21, 2013
Publication date	Jan 24, 2017
Grant date	Jan 24, 2017

Abstract

Medical thermal image processing for vein or other subsurface element detection and related methods is provided. A method for thermal image processing to enhance thermal scene information includes taking an output of an infrared camera and coupling the output to a spatial high pass filter. An output of the spatial high pass filter is then applied to a scene-based noise suppression module.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method for thermal image processing to enhance thermal scene information, comprising the steps of:
taking an output of an infrared camera and coupling the output to a spatial high-pass bandpass filter; and,
applying an output of the spatial high-pass bandpass filter to a scene-based noise suppression module processor,
wherein the scene-based noise suppression processor further comprises at least one of:
removing scene-based low-frequency spatial noise and dynamic range improvement; and
removing scene-based high-frequency spatial noise.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising coupling an output of the scene-based noise suppression module processor to a pedestal subtraction module.

3. The method of claim 2 , wherein the pedestal subtraction module reduces a contrast of large and naturally high contrast scene elements prior to display, whereby a high dynamic range is displayed for small scene elements that are of low contrast.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising taking at least one of a slowly varying and a low-frequency image and spatially filtering the image to remove low-frequency spatial image compliments using a real-time full-frame rate system, wherein the real-time full-frame rate system functions as a scene-based method for low-frequency spatial noise removal and dynamic range enhancement.

5. The method of claim 4 , wherein the real-time full-frame rate system includes a scene-based method for high-frequency spatial noise removal including noise and clutter removal by removing high-frequency spatial image non-uniformity from scene images.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the scene-based method for high-frequency spatial noise removal further comprises at least one of measuring and estimating spatial noise within an original image, and further comprises subtracting the at least one of measured and estimated spatial noise from the original image.

7. The method of claim 6 , wherein the method for removing spatial noise further comprises:
creating a frame stack by applying a pixel radius of a predetermined number of pixels to provide a high pass filter to a predetermined number of frames;
in parallel, creating a frame stack mask by applying a threshold of a predetermined pixel radius variance to a first of said frames; creating a spatial noise reference image by computing a stack frame average of a masked stack; and,
removing a spatial noise from each subsequent frame by subtracting the spatial noise reference image from each of said frames.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising applying a thermal fusion image processing to an output of the scene-based noise suppression module processor.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising applying thermal fusion image processing to an output of the pedestal subtraction module.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
coupling an output of the thermal fusion image processing to an unsharp masking optical element; and,
displaying a result of the output of the unsharp masking element.

11. A method of enhancing thermal imagery comprising:
applying at least one spatial bandpass filter to an image obtained from an infrared camera aimed at mammalian skin; and
suppressing scene-based noise in a noise suppression module processor to visualize and enhance objects that lie below the skin surface,
wherein suppressing scene-based noise further comprises at least one of:
scene-based low-frequency spatial noise removal and dynamic range improvement; and
scene-based high-frequency spatial noise removal.

Assignees

• Bae Systems Information And Electronics Systems Integration Inc
• Bae Sys Inf & Elect Sys Integ

Inventors

• Murphy Robert H
• Ilardi Paul J

Classifications

• G06T2207/20208

  High dynamic range [HDR] image processing · CPC title

• G01J2005/0077

  Imaging · CPC title

• G06T2207/20182

  Noise reduction or smoothing in the temporal domain; Spatio-temporal filtering · CPC title

• G06T2207/30101

  Blood vessel; Artery; Vein; Vascular · CPC title

• A61B5/015

  By temperature mapping of body part · CPC title