JP2017018202A - Image generation apparatus and image generation method - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an image processing device facilitating positioning for laminating a wide field-angle image of a retina and a high-definition narrow field-angle image.SOLUTION: The image processing device includes: acquisition means that acquires a plurality of first field-angle images of a subject's eye and acquiring a second field-angle image having a wider field angle than the first field-angle of the subject's eye; display control means for causing display means to display the plurality of first field-angle images acquired by the acquisition means; selection means for selecting one image out of the plurality of first field-angle images displayed on the display means; and positioning means for positioning the second field-angle image and the first field-angle image selected by the selection means.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 1

Description

  The present invention relates to an image generation apparatus and an image generation method.

  Examination of the fundus is widely performed for the purpose of early diagnosis of lifestyle diseases and diseases that occupy the top causes of blindness. As an apparatus for inspecting the fundus, a scanning laser opthalmoscope (SLO) which is an ophthalmologic apparatus using the principle of a confocal laser microscope is known. This ophthalmologic apparatus performs a raster scan on the fundus with laser as measurement light, and obtains a planar image with high resolution and high speed from the intensity of the return light. Further, in recent years, an adaptive optical SLO (AO-SLO: Adaptive Optics SLO) apparatus that compensates for aberrations occurring in the eye to be examined has been developed. The adaptive optics SLO has a compensation optical system that measures this aberration in real time with a wavefront sensor and corrects aberrations of the measurement light and its return light with a wavefront correction device. Thereby, in this adaptive optics SLO, it is possible to acquire a plane image with high lateral resolution (hereinafter also referred to as an AO-SLO image) by correcting the aberration of the eye to be examined.

  When acquiring a planar image with a high lateral resolution, the shooting range to be shot at a time is narrowed, that is, shooting is performed with a narrow angle of view, due to problems such as optical aberration of the apparatus itself and longer shooting time. For this reason, in order to obtain information necessary for diagnosis, examination, etc., it is necessary to take a plurality of images with a narrow angle of view when the angle of view is insufficient. In addition, even when the image is not a high-magnification image, when a local region of the subject's eye is imaged, the image may be captured a plurality of times within a predetermined range in order to grasp the whole. However, even if a region required for diagnosis or examination is photographed, it is necessary to grasp the relevance between a plurality of photographed images obtained. That is, it is required to generate a single high-definition composite image by clarifying the positional relationship between the captured images and combining them according to the positions.

  In order to solve such a problem, Patent Document 1 proposes a composite device that combines an SLO device that obtains a wide-angle image and an SLO device that obtains a narrow-angle but high-resolution image. . Further, when photographing a desired position of the eye to be examined, a fixation lamp for fixing the eye to be examined is used. In Patent Document 2, attempts have been made to adjust the display position of the fixation lamp according to the diopter of the eye to be examined and obtain a planar image of a desired position of the fundus.

JP 2010-259543 A JP 2013-169332 A

R. Szeliski, Image alignment and stitching: a tutorial, Tech. Rep. MSR-TR-2004-92, Microsoft Research, December 2004.

  It is a common technique to align a plurality of images and create a combined image (Non-Patent Document 1). However, if the features that can be detected in a high-definition image with a narrow angle of view of the fundus are very small structures such as photoreceptor cells and capillaries, they may not be resolved with a wide-angle image. For this reason, in order to improve the matching accuracy and success rate for alignment, it is required that the structures existing in the image are clearly visible, so that the image quality of the low-resolution wide-angle image is sufficient. It is important to ensure.

  From the above, it is required to set a reference image suitable for creating a composite image in an ophthalmologic apparatus that aligns a plurality of images and generates a composite image. As a result, it is possible to paste a plurality of images including a narrow-angle image of a high-definition image after correctly detecting misalignment.

  The present invention has been made in view of such a situation, and makes it possible to increase the alignment accuracy of individual images at the time of pasting eye images taken at a plurality of angles of view. An object is to provide an image processing apparatus and an image processing method.

In order to solve the above problems, an image processing apparatus according to the present invention provides:
Obtaining means for obtaining a plurality of images of a first angle of view of the eye to be examined, and obtaining an image of a second angle of view wider than the first angle of view of the eye to be examined;
Display control means for displaying a plurality of images of the first angle of view acquired by the acquisition means on a display means;
Selecting means for selecting one image from the plurality of images of the first angle of view displayed on the display means;
Alignment means for aligning the image of the second angle of view with respect to the image of the first angle of view selected by the selection means.

  ADVANTAGE OF THE INVENTION According to this invention, the alignment precision in the case of the bonding process of the eye part image image | photographed with the several view angle can be improved.

It is a block diagram which shows the function structure of the image generation apparatus 10 which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is a schematic diagram which shows the structure of the adaptive optics SLO apparatus which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is the figure which showed the example of a GUI screen of the reference | standard image selection menu which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. It is the figure which showed another example of the GUI screen of the reference | standard image selection menu which concerns on Example 1 of this invention. 5 is a flowchart illustrating a processing procedure for generating a combined image performed by the image generation apparatus according to the first embodiment of the present invention. It is the figure which showed the example of a GUI screen in which the mark of an influential candidate in the reference | standard image selection menu is marked. It is the figure which showed another example of the GUI screen in which a strong candidate is marked in the reference | standard image selection menu.

[Example]
In the present embodiment, a description will be given of an aspect in which after acquiring a plurality of planar images obtained by photographing the retina with a plane by the adaptive optics SLO device, the respective images are aligned and a composite image that is pasted to the reference image is generated. . Here, the planar image of the retina refers to a front image obtained when the subject's eye is photographed from the front with a fundus camera or the like. In the apparatus according to the present embodiment, a plane image with a wide angle of view of the retina (wide angle image: an image with a first angle of view) and a plane image with a narrow angle of view (narrow image) are adjusted. Corner image: image of the second field angle). The wide field angle image acquires a wide area of the retina as a full view. The narrow-angle image is acquired at a plurality of locations as necessary as partial images within a region imaged at a wide angle of view as a higher-resolution image than the resolution of the high-angle image.

  In the acquired planar image of the retina, a wide angle image is used as a reference image. Narrow field angle images acquired at a plurality of locations are pasted to corresponding positions in the reference image, thereby generating a composite image. Specifically, the correlation between the reference image and the narrow angle image is calculated, and the relative positional deviation amount between them is detected. Thereafter, this is performed by an alignment unit that takes into account the amount of positional deviation, and a narrow field angle image is pasted to the position of the corresponding wide field angle image.

  At this time, an image having sufficient image quality as a base image for the alignment process needs to be used as the reference image. In this embodiment, the user can select a reference image from a plurality of wide-angle images. By doing in this way, it becomes possible for the user to select an image suitable for the composite image generation process, and it is possible to improve the alignment accuracy and the success rate.

  Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The following embodiments do not limit the present invention related to the scope of claims, and all combinations of features described in the embodiments are not necessarily essential to the solution means of the present invention. Absent.

<Configuration of Image Generation Device>
FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a functional configuration of an image generation apparatus 10 according to the present embodiment. The image generation apparatus 10 is connected to an adaptive optics SLO apparatus having a schematic configuration shown in FIG. 2 as will be described later. Yes. An image generation apparatus 10 illustrated in FIG. 1 includes a signal acquisition unit 100, a control unit 120, a storage unit 130, an image generation unit 140, an image processing unit 150, an output unit 160, and an operation input unit 170. The image processing unit 150 includes an alignment unit 151.

  The signal acquisition unit 100 acquires a reflection signal from the retina and information necessary for image generation from the adaptive optics SLO device. The acquired information is stored in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120. The image generation unit 140 images the reflected signal using the acquired information. Then, using the generated image, the alignment unit 151 sequentially performs alignment and image bonding. In this way, the image processing unit 150 performs an operation to generate a composite image. The output unit 160 outputs the generated image to a monitor (not shown) or the like. The operation input unit 170 is an input means by a user typified by a mouse or a button, and is used, for example, when selecting a reference image to be described later.

  Next, the configuration of the SLO apparatus including the adaptive optics system will be described with reference to FIG. In this embodiment, an SLD light source (Super Luminescent Diode) is used as the light source 201 that emits light as measurement light. In the present embodiment, light sources for photographing and wavefront measurement are shared, but each may be a separate light source and combined in the middle of the optical path. The light emitted from the light source 201 passes through the single mode optical fiber 202 and is irradiated as parallel measurement light 205 by the collimator 203. The irradiated measurement light 205 is transmitted through a light splitting unit 204 formed of a beam splitter and guided to an adaptive optics system for aberration correction.

  The compensation optical system includes a light splitting unit 206, a wavefront sensor 215, a wavefront correction device 208, and reflection mirrors 207-1 to 207-4 for guiding them. Here, the reflection mirrors 207-1 to 207-4 are installed so that at least the pupil of the eye 211, the wavefront sensor 215, and the wavefront correction device 208 are optically conjugate. In this embodiment, a beam splitter is used as the light splitting unit 206, and a spatial phase modulator using a liquid crystal element is used as the wavefront correction device 208. In addition, it is good also as a structure which uses a deformable mirror as a wavefront correction device.

  The light that has passed through the compensation optical system is scanned on the fundus of the eye 211 in one or two dimensions by the scanning optical system 209. As the scanning optical system 209, two galvanometer scanners are used in this embodiment for main scanning (horizontal direction on the fundus) and sub-scanning (vertical direction on the fundus). However, a resonant scanner may be used on the main scanning side of the scanning optical system 209 for higher-speed shooting. At this time, the scanning range, that is, the angle of view can be changed by changing the scanning width of the fundus by the main / sub scanning optical system.

  The measuring light 205 scanned by the scanning optical system 209 is irradiated to the eye 211 through the objective lenses 210-1 and 210-2. The measurement light 205 irradiated to the eye 211 is reflected or scattered by the fundus. By adjusting the positions of the objective lenses 210-1 and 210-2, it is possible to irradiate the optimal position of the measuring light 205 in accordance with the diopter of the eye 211. Although the objective lens is used in this embodiment, it may be constituted by a spherical mirror or the like. Reflected scattered light (returned light) reflected or scattered from the retina of the fundus of the eye 211 travels in the reverse direction on the same path as when it was incident, and part of the light is reflected by the wavefront sensor 215 by the light splitting unit 206. Used to measure the wavefront of a ray.

  The wavefront sensor 215 is connected to the adaptive optics controller 216 and transmits the received wavefront of the return light to the adaptive optics controller 216. The wavefront correction device 208 is also connected to the adaptive optics controller 216 and performs modulation for correcting the wavefronts of the measurement light and the return light instructed from the adaptive optics controller 216. The adaptive optics control unit 216 calculates a modulation amount (correction amount) for correcting to a wavefront having no aberration based on the wavefront acquired from the measurement result of the wavefront sensor 215, and modulates the wavefront correction device 208 as such. To command. Note that the measurement of the wavefront and the instruction to the wavefront correction device 208 are repeatedly executed, and feedback control is performed so that the optimum wavefront is always obtained.

  A part of the reflected and scattered light transmitted through the light splitting unit 206 is reflected by the light splitting unit 204 and guided to the light intensity sensor 214 through the collimator 212 and the optical fiber 213. The light intensity sensor 214 converts the light into an electrical signal corresponding to the intensity, and data obtained from the electrical signal is transmitted to the image generation apparatus 10 by the control unit 217. The image generation apparatus 10 generates a planar image (moving image or still image) using the data. In the configuration of FIG. 2, the compensation optical SLO device in this embodiment can also operate as a normal SLO device by increasing the swing angle of the scanning optical system and instructing the compensation optical control unit 216 not to perform aberration correction. It is. That is, in response to the instruction, the adaptive optics SLO apparatus according to the present embodiment can capture a wide-angle SLO image. The selection between the wide angle setting mode for photographing a wide angle SLO image and the narrow angle setting mode for photographing a narrow angle SLO image is displayed on the display means for selection. This is executed when the user selects an icon or the like.

  In addition, in order to reduce the influence of involuntary eye movement called fixation micromotion, eye movement caused by poor fixation, or eye movement caused by face movement, eye movement may be tracked (tracked). For the measurement of the fundus movement, a planar image generated by the image generation device is used to extract a template image that is a small region image having a feature by a calculation unit (not shown), and a portion most similar to the template image is extracted. There is a method of measuring the movement of the fundus by pattern matching to be searched. Furthermore, by installing a scanner in the optical system and installing the control unit at a position where the scanner and the calculation unit are connected, the irradiation position of the measurement light on the fundus can be made to follow the movement of the fundus measured by the scanner. . Thereby, it is possible to reduce the shift of the shooting position between the frames in one moving image.

  As described above, in the present embodiment, a configuration is realized in which images of a plurality of angles of view are realized by changing the scanning range of one scanning optical system. However, the application target of the present invention is not limited to this, and a configuration may be adopted in which different scanning optical systems are provided for each of a wide field angle and a narrow field angle.

<Flow of shooting>
Next, an actual photographing flow when the image generating apparatus according to the present embodiment is used will be described.

  First, in the SLO apparatus, a whole view of the fundus of the patient is photographed with a wide angle of view setting. This wide angle image is taken a plurality of times. Among them, which image is set as the reference image is selected by the user via the operation input unit 170. Details of the reference image selection method at this time will be described later.

  Next, photographing with a high magnification (narrow field angle) of the retina is performed with a narrow field angle setting. Here, a plurality of portions are photographed where the detailed retina situation is desired. The image generation apparatus 10 generates and displays a composite image obtained by combining (superimposing) a narrow angle of view image at a corresponding position with the above-described reference image as a base image every time narrow angle of view photographing is performed. At this time, the position at which the narrow-angle image is pasted is a position corresponding to the position where the high-magnification shooting was performed in the reference image is calculated by image processing, and image synthesis processing is performed. It will be described later.

<Selection of reference image>
Here, a reference image selection method will be described.
First, the reference image selection menu is activated by the user. The activation method of the reference image selection menu may be a hardware key such as a push button, or may be a GUI menu button displayed on the touch panel. Alternatively, a method of selecting the GUI menu by an HID represented by a mouse or a trackball may be used.

  When the reference image selection menu is activated, first, images taken with a wide angle of view setting are searched as candidates for the reference image, and a list of wide angle images obtained from the eye to be examined is displayed. An example of the screen display of the reference image selection menu is shown in FIG.

  As shown in FIG. 3, the user selects which image is the reference image from among the reference image candidates displayed in a list (image group listed in the region 301 in FIG. 3) by a cursor operation, It designates with the decision button 302. The activation of the selection menu and the selection of the reference image so far are executed via the operation input unit 170. When the reference image is selected by the user, information for specifying the wide-angle image selected as the reference image, for example, an image ID, is stored in the storage unit 130 of the image generation apparatus 10.

  In this embodiment, the reference image candidates are displayed as a list of wide-angle images captured by the current photographing of the currently photographing patient's eye. As for identification of a patient, information for uniquely identifying a patient represented by a patient ID is usually input before imaging as a link for data management. Therefore, in the present embodiment, information on the reference image is collected by using this patient ID as information for specifying the patient.

  Note that the method of selecting a reference image candidate is not limited to the method of this embodiment. For example, past images of the same patient may be collected by searching the in-hospital image information database. Further, in the wide-angle image, if an obvious failure can be automatically detected due to the moment of blinking or the effect of fixational movement, these images may be excluded from the reference image candidate images in advance.

  Further, in this embodiment, the reference image candidate image can be manually added from any storage means or database by the user. As an example of the addition method, as in a general window system, a method of selecting various storages and databases and opening and selecting a wide-angle image file displayed as an icon, or a wide-angle image displayed as a list A method of selecting from the thumbnail images is considered. As a result, it is possible to meet various needs of users, such as automatically transferring images that have been automatically removed from candidate images as described above, and manually transferring past captured images.

  Here, regarding the GUI operation method, there may be many reference image candidates, and the thumbnail image may be too small to be displayed at a time. In this case, a display format on a so-called portable monitor may be used in which a plurality of thumbnail images are not forcibly stored on one screen, and the display images are sequentially viewed by scroll operation. In addition, when one of the candidate images displayed as a list is selected by a cursor operation, an enlarged image of the selected candidate image is displayed on a separate screen (a separate window) in case the thumbnail display is difficult to confirm. Also good.

  In the present embodiment, the GUI format for displaying a list has been described. However, as shown in FIG. 4, a format in which candidate images are displayed one by one may be used. In this case, the user can browse images while switching images (page feed) with the page feed buttons 401 and 402 until an image suitable as the reference image is found. When an image that is considered to be appropriate is determined from the candidate images, the reference image can be determined with the determination button 403.

<Processing procedure of image processing apparatus>
Next, a synthetic image generation processing procedure performed in the image generation apparatus 10 of the present embodiment will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

<Step S510>
In step S <b> 510, the signal acquisition unit 100 acquires signal information of a plurality of images or moving images acquired from the adaptive optics SLO device connected to the image generation device 10. The signal information includes a position signal of a galvano scanner or a resonant scanner used for photographing the retina, a reflection signal from the retina obtained by photographing, and the like. The acquired signal information is stored in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120. In this embodiment, the signal acquisition unit 100 acquires a plurality of images of the first angle of view of the eye to be examined, and an image of the second angle of view with a higher magnification or a narrower range than one angle of view of the eye to be examined. The acquisition means for acquiring is configured.

  At this time, hardware control information accompanying the acquired signal information is acquired and stored in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120. Here, the control information includes information on a frame rate corresponding to a sampling frequency and a frequency of a galvano scanner, a photographing field angle, and the like when acquiring a retina reflection signal. Such control information may be described in a shooting information file added to signal information, or may be included as tag information of signal information.

<Step S520>
In step S520, the image generation unit 140 generates each image or moving image from the signal information acquired by the adaptive optics SLO device stored in the storage unit 130. The acquired image or moving image is stored in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120. In this embodiment, the acquired image or moving image takes a general rectangular shape.

  Even if there is a difference in the wide angle or narrow angle of view setting, the retinal image is basically acquired according to the above flow. Here, the control unit 120 causes the output unit 160 to display a wide-angle image on a monitor (not shown) that is a display unit. In this embodiment, the control unit 120 constitutes display control means for displaying a plurality of wide-angle images on the display unit.

  Further, as described above, a plurality of wide-angle images displayed side by side in a list style, scroll style, or page turning style on the monitor are browsed by the user, and a selection of which image to use as a reference image is made. . The selected result is transmitted to the control unit 120 via the operation input unit 170. In this embodiment, the operation input unit 170 accepts user instructions as input means. In addition, a configuration including the operation input unit 170 and the control unit 120 that selects the reference image in accordance with the instruction or the determination based on the image processing depending on the case is a selection unit.

  In the following, the procedure for generating a combined composite image by aligning the acquired retinal image with respect to the reference image will be described. Therefore, the processing at the time of photographing a narrow angle of view after completing acquisition of a wide angle of view from step S530 and selecting a reference image will be described.

<Step S530>
In step S530, the alignment unit 151 aligns the narrow angle image with respect to the reference image selected in the section <Selection of reference image> or an image that has already been synthesized by alignment and pasting. Do. That is, in the present embodiment, the alignment unit 151 constitutes an alignment unit that aligns the narrow angle image with respect to the wide angle image selected by the selection unit.

  Any known method can be used as the method for aligning the narrow-angle image with respect to the reference image or the synthesized image.

  For example, in the present embodiment, the normalized cross-correlation is calculated using the pixel value of the overlapping region of two images shifted by translation. The correlation function thus obtained and the position information for coarse alignment are stored in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120. As another method, a general pattern matching method such as SAD (sum of absolute values of differences in luminance values) or SSD (sum of absolute values of differences in luminance values) is used by using similar pixel values. It may be used. A more general POC (phase only correlation method) may be used.

<Step S540>
In step S540, based on the alignment position information between the reference image and the narrow angle image calculated in step S530, the image is synthesized by combining the narrow angle image with the reference image or the synthesized image. To do. The composite image generated in this way is recorded in the storage unit 130 through the control unit 120, and further displayed on a monitor or the like through the output unit 160 as a panoramic image of the retina.
The effects obtained by the above configuration will be described below.

  As described above, in order to improve the matching accuracy and success rate for alignment, it is important to sufficiently ensure the image quality of a wide-angle image having a low resolution. In addition to the above-mentioned examples, the causes of lowering the image quality of wide-angle images include image blur due to fixation fluctuation during shooting, insufficient contrast due to insufficient measurement light being delivered to the fundus due to miosis, and adjustment fine movement. There is out of focus by.

  Wide-angle images often require longer image acquisition times than narrow-angle images, including image quality degradation due to the above-mentioned problems, and including fine areas that can only be resolved at high resolution, such as near the fovea. In some cases, the image quality may be low.

  On the other hand, regarding the image alignment processing, if the image quality of the portion corresponding to the position where the image is acquired with a narrow angle of view is ensured in the wide angle of view image, there is a problem even if there is a region where the image quality is partially poor. There may not be. For example, when the user actually sees and judges the image, it can be seen that a part with low image quality is an area that is not resolved, such as the fovea. Further, even if the image quality partially deteriorates in the wide-angle image, whether or not the wide-angle image can be used can be determined based on whether or not the low-image quality portion is a necessary portion.

  As described above, when pasting narrow-angle images, it is not always easy to determine the suitability of the reference image for positioning. How to set the reference image suitable for creating a stitched image Was important. By configuring as in the present embodiment, the user can determine and set an appropriate wide-angle image as a reference image. Therefore, it is possible to reduce the misalignment detection failure at the time of pasting the eye image captured at a plurality of angles of view.

(Other Embodiments: Timing for Selecting Reference Image)
In the above-described embodiment, the flow of shooting is a flow in which a wide-angle image is acquired a plurality of times, a reference image is selected from a reference image selection menu, and then a narrow-angle image shooting is performed. The flow is not limited to this.

  The reference image selection menu can be called at an arbitrary timing, and the reference image can be selected even during narrow-angle imaging. Therefore, at the time of shooting, even if the reference image is not set by the user, the pasting and combining process is performed using the latest wide-angle image as a temporary reference image at that time. In this case, when the reference image selection menu is called again by the user after shooting and the reference image is set, a combined composite image is generated again based on the newly set reference image. That is, when the selected reference image is changed to another image among the plurality of wide-angle images, the alignment unit aligns the narrow-angle image with respect to the changed reference image.

  Further, at this time, the positional deviation information between each narrow field angle image and the reference image at the time of the last generation of the combined composite image is stored, and this is used as an initial value for the newly set reference image. Misalignment detection is performed. That is, the position of the narrow angle image is aligned with the reference image after change using the position of the narrow angle image aligned with the reference image before change.

  By doing so, there is an increased possibility of saving the time required for calculation of misregistration detection. In addition, when a reference image is selected again during acquisition of a plurality of narrow angle images, a method of restarting the pasting and combining process from the beginning may be used.

(Other Embodiments: Reference Image Selection Screen)
In the above-described embodiments, the GUI screen for selecting the candidate images for the reference image has been described. However, when there are many reference images, convenience can be improved if it is possible to check what is preferable for the user. As described in the previous embodiment, when there are a large number of reference images, there are a method of displaying a part and scrolling, or a display method of checking one by one like page turning. At this time, even if a preferable image is found, there is a possibility that there is a better image among the images that have not been viewed yet. Therefore, it is necessary to store this image as a strong candidate for the time being.

  In such a case, it is usually difficult to find and review the image that was a strong candidate again from many candidate images. As a countermeasure, it is convenient if this leading candidate image is marked in some way. In this embodiment, a GUI that can add a check mark near each candidate image is configured based on this idea. FIG. 6 is an example of the scroll display GUI of the reference image candidate images in the present embodiment. In the figure, a check box 610 is arranged on the display screen so that a check mark is added. Also, a sort button 620 is provided so that only items with a check mark can be displayed in a list. Thereby, the convenience at the time of reexamining a leading candidate image further increases. In this embodiment, the sort button 620 is a toggle button, and when it is pressed again, the sort display is canceled.

  FIG. 7 is an example of a page feed display GUI of the candidate image of the reference image in the present embodiment. Similarly, the GUI illustrated in FIG. 7 includes a check box 710 so that a check mark can be attached. The GUI may also include a sort button. In this case, the page-by-page display is usually performed one by one for each candidate image, but by pressing the sort button, the list is switched to the list of leading candidate images with a check mark. Convenience increases. In the above embodiment, a check box is exemplified as a display form indicating whether or not a candidate is selected as a reference image. However, the present invention is not limited to this form as long as it can be confirmed as a candidate. Various known modes can be applied as long as marks that can be confirmed later are added.

(Other embodiment: System configuration)
In the embodiment described above, an example in which an ophthalmic examination apparatus is used as an acquisition unit that acquires eye part images captured at a plurality of angles of view has been described, but the acquisition unit is not limited thereto. For example, a system in which an image generation apparatus and a medical database storing imaging data of a patient's retina are connected via a LAN and an image is acquired via a network may be used.

  The present invention supplies a program that realizes one or more functions of the above-described embodiments to a system or apparatus via a network or a storage medium, and one or more processors in a computer of the system or apparatus read and execute the program This process can be realized. It can also be realized by a circuit (for example, ASIC) that realizes one or more functions.

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 10 Image generation apparatus 100 Signal acquisition part 120 Control part 130 Storage part 140 Image generation part 150 Image processing part 151 Position alignment part 160 Output part 170 Operation input part

Claims (11)

Obtaining means for obtaining a plurality of images of a first angle of view of the eye to be examined, and obtaining an image of a second angle of view wider than the first angle of view of the eye to be examined;
Display control means for displaying a plurality of images of the first angle of view acquired by the acquisition means on a display means;
Selecting means for selecting one image from the plurality of images of the first angle of view displayed on the display means;
An image generation apparatus comprising: an alignment unit configured to align the image of the second field angle with respect to the image of the first field angle selected by the selection unit.   The image generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display the plurality of images having the first angle of view side by side.   The image generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display a list of images having the plurality of first angles of view.   The image generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the display control unit causes the display unit to display the plurality of images having the first angle of view one by one.   When the image of the first angle of view selected by the selection unit is changed to another image among the plurality of images of the first angle of view, the alignment unit sets the first image after the change. 5. The image generation apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image of the second angle of view is aligned with the image of the angle of view.   The alignment means uses the position of the second field angle image aligned with the first field angle image before the change to the image with the first field angle after the change. The image generating apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the image of the second angle of view is aligned.   The alignment means uses the position of the second field angle image aligned with the first field angle image before the change as an initial value to change the first field angle image after the change. The image generating apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the image of the second angle of view is aligned with respect to the image generating apparatus.   The display control means displays a display form indicating whether or not the image of the first angle of view displayed on the display means is a candidate to be selected by the selection means together with the image of the first angle of view. The image generating apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the image generating apparatus displays the image on a display unit.   9. The input device according to claim 1, further comprising an input unit that instructs the selection unit to select an image to be selected from the plurality of images having the first angle of view displayed on the display unit. Image generation device. Obtaining a plurality of images of a first angle of view of the eye to be examined, and obtaining an image of a second angle of view wider than the first angle of view of the eye to be examined;
A display control step of displaying a plurality of images of the first angle of view acquired in the acquisition step side by side on a display unit;
A selection step of selecting one image from the plurality of images of the first angle of view displayed on the display unit;
An image generation method comprising: an alignment step of aligning the image of the second angle of view with respect to the image of the first angle of view selected in the selection step.   A program for causing a computer to execute the image generation method according to claim 10.