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:
Jul. 10, 2012
Filed:
Sep. 19, 2007
Songyang Yu, Mississauga, CA;
Vittorio Accomazzi, Toronto, CA;
Paul Geiger, Toronto, CA;
Merge Healthcare Incorporated, Hartland, WI (US);
Abstract
A method for removing shutter areas in an image, in particular an x-ray image is provided. Edges are examined in a multi-resolution image pyramid and evaluated to determine potential shutter blade candidates defining the shutter areas. Heuristic rules and/or an automatic classifier such as a Neuronal Network, are applied to distinguish true shutter blades from false positives. The rule set and the classifier are based on a set of features extracted from the potential shutter blade candidates as well as predetermined knowledge of the expected placement of the shutter, human anatomy. Up to four shutter blades are expected to be detected and based on these blades, the bright areas in the image that occur due to the shutters are removed.