JP2007328444A - Window display controller and controlling method, and ultrasonic diagnostic equipment comprising the controller - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a technique to prevent continuation of diagnosis in such a state that important information is hidden or that misunderstanding remains by notifying a user of the state or redisplaying it when the important information is hidden by another window. <P>SOLUTION: A display controller for a plurality of windows when displaying the windows on a monitor comprises a means 21 for storing importance of the windows displayed on the monitor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to which the technique related to window display control is applied.

  With the use of general-purpose OSs and general-purpose middleware, medical devices and offline analysis devices have a multi-window system user interface and ease of construction. However, in a multi-window environment, a plurality of windows can be displayed overlapping each other on the same display. Therefore, the window located at the forefront (hereinafter simply referred to as the front window) can see all the contents of that window, but the window located behind this front window (the back window) sees all the contents of that window. It is not possible.

In order to solve the above problem, in Patent Document 1 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-47785), a hidden lower layer window in a plurality of overlapping windows on a computer display is operated by operating a pointing device. Disclosed are techniques that can be seen.
In Patent Document 2 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-234426), operation buttons on the rear window are automatically displayed so as not to be hidden behind the front window.
In Patent Document 3 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-65808), the position of the rear window before being rearranged is stored, and when the rear window rearranged in the visible state is actively displayed, the stored rearrangement is stored. It is displayed at the previous position.
In Patent Document 4 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 8-129472), overlapping of a plurality of windows is detected, and a part of the upper window is cut out and displayed so that at least a part of the lower window can be seen.
In Patent Document 5 (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 9-330198), a specific window is always displayed on the lowest layer.
As described above, the techniques described in Patent Document 1 to Patent Document 5 detect overlap in window units, but the windows themselves need to be switched manually.

In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, in particular, there is a lot of information displayed on the screen and a lot of information important for diagnosis. Also, the information on the screen has a difference in importance, and there are information that should always be displayed and information that should not be hidden.
However, when an unexpected error occurs, a message issued by the OS or middleware may obscure important information, which may cause misunderstanding. In addition, there is a possibility that misunderstanding may occur when other information overlaps important information or only a part of important information is hidden.
Furthermore, in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, since diagnosis is promoted in real time, an easily misunderstood display is likely to lead to misdiagnosis and is extremely dangerous.
JP 2000-47785 A JP 2004-234426 A Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-65808 JP-A-8-129472 JP-A-9-330198

  When important information is hidden in another window, the present invention notifies the user to that effect or displays it again to diagnose important information in a hidden or misunderstood state. The purpose is to provide technology to prevent the continuation of

  The invention according to an aspect of the present invention is characterized in that, in a window display control apparatus when a plurality of windows are displayed on a monitor, means for storing the importance of the window displayed on the monitor is provided.

  According to the present invention, when important information is hidden in another window, a state in which important information is hidden or misunderstood by notifying the user or displaying the information again. Can prevent the diagnosis from continuing.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. With reference to FIG. 1, a block configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to which a window display control apparatus according to the present invention is applied will be described. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration diagram of an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to which a window display control apparatus according to the present invention is applied. In FIG. 1, all window control is executed by the host CPU, so a window display control device is not newly provided separately from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

  An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention includes a probe 11, a pulser / preamplifier unit 12, a pulse sequence control unit 13, a pulse train operation unit 14, a reception beam former 15, an echo separation unit 16, an image processor 17, and a display unit. 18, a host CPU 19 and a monitor 20.

  The probe 11 is a probe (probe) for irradiating an imaging ultrasonic wave into a subject, and is formed of a plurality of piezoelectric elements arranged one-dimensionally or two-dimensionally.

  The pulser / preamplifier unit 12 measures the drive timing of the piezoelectric element of the probe 11 based on a control signal from the pulse sequence control unit 13 and supplies a drive voltage to the probe 11. The pulser / preamplifier unit 12 controls the direction, shape, and focusing of the ultrasonic beam transmitted from the probe 11.

  The pulse sequence control unit 13 is a control unit that controls a sequence related to driving of a voltage applied to the probe 11 by the pulsar / preamplifier unit 12 and a waveform of an ultrasonic wave transmitted by the probe 11.

  The pulse train operating unit 14 is means for operating the amplitude and pulse interval of the transmission pulse. When an operator inputs a desired pulse amplitude / pulse interval by an input means such as a mouse or a keyboard (not shown), an input value is set by the pulse train operation unit 14.

  The reception beamformer 15 performs beam forming on the received beam and controls the direction, shape, and focusing of the reception beam. That is, the reception beamformer 15 amplifies the input echo signal by a preamplifier for each channel, gives a delay time necessary for determining the reception directivity by the reception delay circuit after A / D conversion, and adds the adder. Addition processing is performed at. The echo signal after the addition has an enhanced reflection component from the direction corresponding to the reception directivity.

  The echo separation unit 16 separates and extracts the excitation ultrasound echo, the contrast agent detection ultrasound image, and the tissue image ultrasound echo from the reception signal formed by the reception beam former 15. Note that the characteristics of the filter corresponding to each echo are stored in advance.

  The image processor 17 generates an ultrasound image based on the contrast agent detection echo or the tissue image echo extracted by the echo separation unit 16.

  Further, the image processor 17 includes a logarithmic amplifier, an envelope detection circuit, and a digital filter (not shown). For example, when the harmonic imaging method is used, the digital filter is set with the characteristics of a high-pass filter that allows a large amount of two-dimensional harmonic components to pass through with respect to the fundamental wave component of transmission.

  Furthermore, the image processor 17 is a wall filter for removing clutter as a Doppler processing system, an autocorrelation circuit for calculating a correlation between each signal based on a plurality of echo signals having different phases, the intensity of the echo signal and the blood flow velocity. It has a power / speed average / LOG compression circuit for calculating an average value and compressing an echo signal.

  The display unit 18 scan-converts the signal sequence processed by the image processor 17 and sends it to the monitor 20.

  The host CPU 19 is a control unit that performs overall control of signal processing executed in each component.

  The monitor 20 is a display means such as a CRT.

  The window control in the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus according to the embodiment of the present invention configured as described above will be described. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing an outline of a method for managing a plurality of windows displayed on the monitor 20. Note that the window is controlled by the host CPU 19. The host CPU 19 includes a storage unit (not shown) that temporarily stores the coordinates of the window displayed on the monitor 20.

  As shown in FIG. 2, the application program executed by the host CPU 19 executes a predetermined process and sequentially displays the execution result and progress on the monitor 20. In order to enable the monitor 20 to display the progress and execution results of a plurality of application programs at the same time, each application program is displayed in a window (window 1 and window 2 in the figure) assigned to each application program. The progress and result of execution are displayed. On the other hand, each window is inspected sequentially by an automatic detection program. The automatic detection program refers to the definition file 21 that defines the importance level of the application program, and the window in which the important information is displayed is not behind or overlaps the other less important windows. Then, it is checked whether or not everything is displayed, and if a window displaying important information is partially or partially hidden by another window, a detection result is output. Based on this detection result, the user is alerted, or a window with high importance is rearranged in front of a window with low importance.

The flow of the above processing will be described with reference to FIG.
First, the importance of the application is registered (step S1). This is stored as a definition file 21 shown in FIG. 2 together with an application program, for example, in a HD (hard disk device) as a part of a database (not shown). The importance of the application is set as the most important one that is directly related to diagnosis, for example,
(1) Display window by application related to diagnosis (for example, measurement value, probe temperature, etc.)
(2) System messages (such as OS error messages)
(3) Display windows by other applications
The importance is set so that the importance decreases in the order of. This importance is preferably set by the registrant of the application when the application is registered in the system.

  When the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus starts operation, each application program is activated. At this time, a program for detecting the window position is activated to detect the importance of the operating application program (step S2). The importance of the application program is performed every time a new application program is started.

  Next, the detection program detects the coordinates of each window (step S3), and determines whether or not the window related to the application program with high importance is hidden behind the other windows (step S4). For example, there are cases as shown in FIG. 4 or FIG. For example, if a value of 0.185 is displayed as a diagnostic value in an important window, in FIG. 4, windows where nothing is written are overlapped so that the diagnostic value is 0.1. appear. Moreover, in FIG. 5, the window displayed as 25 overlaps on it, and it seems that the diagnostic value is 0.125. Thus, if 0.185 is a normal value as a diagnostic value and 0.1 or 0.125 is an abnormal value, there is a possibility of misdiagnosis.

  Therefore, when all or a part of the highly important window is hidden by another window (Yes in step S4), the user is notified of the fact and the process returns to step S3 (step S5). This notification may be performed, for example, by changing the display color of the monitor, blinking a hidden window, or blinking a window in front of an important window. If an error message appears, the error message can be moved or deleted once. Furthermore, the entire screen may be temporarily hidden to notify the user that the situation is likely to cause misunderstanding. Instead of notifying the user, the hidden window may be automatically displayed in the foreground, or may be displayed again in another area.

  If it is determined in step S4 that a highly important window is not hidden, the process returns to step S3 and monitoring is continued. This monitoring is performed until the use of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is finished.

  As described above, according to the embodiment of the present invention, when important information is hidden in another window, the user is notified or displayed again, so that the important information is hidden or misunderstood. It is possible to prevent the diagnosis from being continued in such a state.

  The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention at the stage of implementation. Further, the above embodiments include inventions at various stages, and various inventions can be extracted by appropriately combining a plurality of disclosed constituent elements.

  In addition, for example, even if some structural requirements are deleted from all the structural requirements shown in each embodiment, the problem described in the column of the problem to be solved by the invention can be solved, and the effect described in the effect of the invention Can be obtained as an invention.

It is a block diagram which shows the schematic block diagram of the ultrasonic diagnosing device with which the window display control apparatus which concerns on this invention is applied. 3 is a block diagram showing an outline of a method for managing a plurality of windows displayed on a monitor 20. FIG. It is a flowchart which shows the flow of operation | movement of the window display control apparatus which concerns on this invention. It is a figure which shows one aspect | mode when a window is hidden behind the other window. It is a figure which shows one aspect | mode when a window is hidden behind the other window.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 11 ... Probe 12 ... Preamplifier unit 13 ... Pulse sequence control part 14 ... Pulse train operation part 15 ... Reception beam former 16 ... Echo separation part 17 ... Image processor 18 ... Display unit 19 ... Host CPU
20 ... Monitor 21 ... Definition file

Claims (8)

In the display control device for a window when displaying a plurality of windows on a monitor,
A window display control device comprising means for storing the importance of a window displayed on the monitor. 2. The window display control device according to claim 1, further comprising means for detecting that at least all or a part of the windows stored as having the highest importance are hidden by other windows. Display control device. 3. The window display control apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the detection means detects an overlap of windows from inspection of screen brightness and window information of each window, and all or a part of the windows having the highest importance are detected. A window display control device characterized by detecting that it is hidden. 4. The window display control device according to claim 2, wherein the detection means is a monitoring program module that is resident in a memory during operation. 5. The window display control device according to claim 2, wherein when the detection unit detects that all or a part of the most important window is hidden, this effect is provided. A window display control device further comprising means for notifying the user of the above. 5. The window display control device according to claim 2, wherein when the detection unit detects that all or a part of the most important window is hidden, A window display control device which redisplays a window having a high degree of importance in the forefront or another area. An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus comprising the window display control apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 6. In the window display control method when multiple windows are displayed on the monitor,
Remember the importance of the window displayed on the monitor,
Monitor that at least all or some of the windows stored as most important are hidden by other windows,
When it is detected that all or a part of the most important window is hidden, this is notified to the user, or the window is re-displayed in the foreground. Method.

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