The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Sep. 02, 1997
Filed:
Jun. 30, 1995
Dong-Chyuan Liu, Mercer Island, WA (US);
Siemens Medical Systems, Inc, Iselin, NJ (US);
Abstract
A method for enhancing an ultrasound image. The image is assumed to be in the form of an ordered array of pixels. Each pixel corresponding to the intensity of the echo generated by a corresponding voxel in an ultrasound energy field. Axial and lateral directions relative to the ultrasound beam used to generate the sound field are defined within the ordered array. The method of the present invention includes the steps of dividing the image into a plurality of processing blocks, picking blocks that satisfy certain statistical constraints for edge enhancement, enhancing the pixels in the selected blocks, and then displaying the pixels in each block, whether enhanced or not, that are above a display threshold for the block in question. The statistical constraints are determined by second order statistics with reference to the axial and later directions. In one embodiment of the present invention, sum and difference histograms are used to approximate the second order statistics, thereby reducing the computational load.