Koninklijke Philips Corporation N.v.

Stephane Allaire

Gary Cheng-How Ng

Cecile Dufour

Vijay Thakur Shamdasani

Vladimir Pekar

Karl Antonin Bzdusek

Oudom Somphone

Thomas Tang

A medical imaging apparatus () for inspecting a volume of a subject () is disclosed. The medical imaging apparatus comprises an ultrasound acquisition unit () including an ultrasound probe for acquiring ultrasound image data of the subject, an image interface () for receiving medical image data of the subject, a position determining unit () for determining a position of the ultrasound probe. An alignment unit is provided for aligning the ultrasound image data and the medical image data based on anatomical features () of the subject and the detected position of the ultrasound probe and for adapting the alignment of the ultrasound image data and the medical image data based on a motion model. An image processing unit () is provided for processing the ultrasound image data and the medical image data to fuse the ultrasound image data and the medical image data based on the alignment to combined image data.

Medical imaging apparatus and medical imaging method for inspecting a volume of a subject

An ultrasound imaging apparatus () is disclosed for providing two-dimensional ultrasound images of a patient. The ultrasound imaging apparatus comprises an input interface () for receiving three-dimensional ultrasound data of a volume of the patient from an ultrasound acquisition unit as a continuous data stream and a motion detection unit () for determining a motion of an object in the three-dimensional ultrasound data and a direction of the motion in the three-dimensional ultrasound data. An image processing unit () determines a spatial rotation angle () of an image plane () within the volume on the basis of the determined direction of the motion and determines two-dimensional ultrasound image data on the basis of the three-dimensional ultrasound data in the image plane within the volume. The two-dimensional image data is provided via an output interface to a display unit ().

Ultrasound imaging apparatus

A system () generates an image registration map. The system () includes one or more processors () which receive a first image and a second image. Corresponding interest points in the first image and the second image are identified. Corresponding structures in the first and second images are identified and corresponding boundary points are identified on their boundaries. A registration map is generated from pairs of the corresponding interest points and a subset of pairs of the corresponding boundary points. The registration map is applied to one of the first and second images to register the one image to the other and propagate objects of interest over.

Hybrid point-based registration

When registering multiple multidimensional images based on landmarks, the system improves the distribution and density of the points in correspondence across images, which are of crucial importance for the accuracy and reliability of the resulting registration transform. Projection of input corresponding point landmarks is performed in order to automatically generate additional point correspondences. The input existing landmarks may have been manually or automatically located in the input multiple images. Projection is performed from each source landmark along one or more determined projection directions onto one or more determined projection targets in each image. The projection target(s) can be explicitly materialized or implicitly defined. Candidate new points are identified at the locations where the projection ray paths intersect with the projection target(s). Correspondence between the new points across images is transferred from the input landmarks from which they have been projected, with further distinction by projection direction and/or projection target in the case where a plurality of these was used. Subsequent registration can use all or a selected subset of all combined input landmark correspondences and correspondences between additional projected landmark points. The additional correspondences between projected landmark points contribute in refining the image registration. Such accurate, efficient and robust tools for image registration and any downstream processing, such as contour propagation or image fusion, are highly demanded for various medical applications, such as adaptive radiotherapy.

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Suresnes, France

Stephane Allaire