Virtualscopics LLC

University of Rochester

Virtuals{tilde Over (c)}opics, LLC

Saara Marjatta Sofia Totterman

Kevin J Parker

Wingchi Edmund Kwok

Jianhui Zhong

José Tamez-Peña

Edward Ashton

José Tamez Peña

Jos&eacute; Tamez Pe&ntilde;a

Jose Tamez Pena

Jos&eacute; Tamez-Pe&ntilde;a

In CT (computed tomography) images, streak artifacts caused by the presence of metal implants and inhomogeneous estimation of tissue density are reduced or eliminated. The algorithm has two basic steps: 1) illumination correction and 2) adaptive 3D filtering. The algorithm starts by estimating the direction of the streak and the degree of inhomogeneous densities by gray scale morphology dilatation. Then, it proceeds to estimate the correct densities based on the estimations and to reduce the streak by an adaptive 3D filtering whose parameters depend on the streak direction and the local image contrast.

System and method for reducing or eliminating streak artifacts and illumination inhomogeneity in CT imaging

MRI scans typically have higher resolution within a slice than between slices. To improve the resolution, two MRI scans are taken in different, preferably orthogonal, directions. The scans are registered by maximizing a correlation between their gradients and then fused to form a high-resolution image. Multiple receiving coils can be used. When the images are multispectral, the number of spectral bands is reduced by transformation of the spectral bands in order of image contrast and using the transformed spectral bands with the highest contrast.

Method and system which forms an isotropic, high-resolution, three-dimensional diagnostic image of a subject from two-dimensional image data scans

Magnetic resonance method and system forming an isotropic, high resolution, three-dimensional diagnostic image of a subject from two-dimensional image data scans

In a human or animal organ or other region of interest, specific objects, such as liver metastases and brain lesions, serve as indicators, or biomarkers, of disease. In a three-dimensional image of the organ, the biomarkers are identified and quantified both before and after a stimulus is applied, and their reaction to the stimulus is observed. Statistical segmentation techniques are used to identify the biomarker in a first image and to carry the identification over to the remaining images.

Method and system for assessment of biomarkers by measurement of response to stimulus

In CT (computed tomography) images, streak artifacts caused by the presence of metal implants and inhomogeneous estimation of tissue density are reduced or eliminated. The algorithm has two basic steps: 1) illumination correction and 2) adaptive 3D filtering. The algorithm starts by estimating the direction of the streak and the degree of inhomogeneous densities by gray scale morphology dilation. Then, it proceeds to estimate the correct densities based on the estimations and to reduce the streak by an adaptive 3D filtering whose parameters depend on the streak direction and the local image contrast.

In magnetic resonance imaging, a pulse sequence is used to obtain both water-only and fat-only signals within a single acquisition time. Pulses and readout gradients are applied to take a proton-density-weighted image of the water, a proton-density-weighted image of the fat, and a T2-weighted image of the water. Between the first water readout gradient and the fat readout gradient, a spoiling gradient is applied to spoil the first water echo. Between the fat readout gradient and the second water readout gradient, a refocusing gradient is applied to refocus the second water echo. The proton-density-weighted images of water and fat are combined to form water-plus-fat images free of in-plane and through-plane chemical-shift artifacts.

Interleaved water and fat dual-echo spin echo magnetic resonance imaging with intrinsic chemical shift elimination

A magnetic imaging device, such as an MR scanner, is used to provide a modified three-dimensional gradient echo sequence having a spatial-spectral excitation in which phase-encoding lines are interleaved for the excitation of water and of fat. The phase-encoding lines are spaced by an interval equal to half of the repetition time. The resulting data are sorted for the reconstruction of water-only and fat-only images, which are realigned and combined to form water-fat combined images free of chemical shift artifacts.

System and method for three-dimensional interleaved water and fat image acquisition with chemical-shift correction

From raw image data obtained through magnetic resonance imaging or the like, an object is reconstructed and visualized in four dimensions (both space and time) by first dividing the first image in the sequence of images into regions through statistical estimation of the mean value and variance of the image data and joining of picture elements (voxels) that are sufficiently similar and then extrapolating the regions to the remainder of the images by using known motion characteristics of components of the image (e.g., spring constants of muscles and tendons) to estimate the rigid and deformational motion of each region from image to image. The object and its regions can be rendered and interacted with in a four-dimensional virtual reality environment.

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, NY, United States of America

Saara Marjatta Sofia Totterman