JP3294920B2 - Ultrasonic image recording / reproducing device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ultrasonic image recording and reproducing apparatus, and more particularly to an apparatus for recording and reproducing an ultrasonic image transmitted from an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art An ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus is an apparatus that forms an ultrasonic image such as a tomographic image and a blood flow image by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, and is utilized in various disease diagnoses. 2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when an ultrasonic image (image information of an ultrasonic image) is stored, an ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as a VTR) is connected to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus via a video signal line.
(Hereinafter simply referred to as an image recording / reproducing apparatus), and an ultrasonic image is recorded in a storage medium of the image recording / reproducing apparatus. Then, when necessary, a desired ultrasonic image is reproduced, which is used for later diagnosis.

In a conventional ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, various "character information" such as a patient identification ID number and a patient name are inserted into a part of an ultrasonic image as management information. That is, the ultrasonic image includes not only a tomographic image formed by transmission and reception of ultrasonic waves, but also character information displayed around or superimposed thereon.

Therefore, such character information is also recorded in the above-mentioned image recording / reproducing apparatus as a part of the ultrasonic image. When an ultrasonic image is reproduced, character information is also reproduced at the same time, so that it is easy to understand which patient the ultrasonic image belongs to. By the way, in a conventional image recording and reproducing apparatus, when searching and reproducing a desired ultrasonic image, various “search information (search keys)” to be searched are associated with each ultrasonic image. Need to be. The search information to be searched includes, for example, the creation date of the ultrasound image, the serial number of the ultrasound image, the ID number for patient identification, the patient name, and the like.

Conventionally, of the above search information, search information such as date and serial number has been automatically generated by an image recording / reproducing apparatus. That is, for each piece of image information transmitted from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to the image recording / reproducing apparatus,
An automatically encoded creation date and serial number are given, and the search information is recorded together with the ultrasonic image on a storage medium of the image recording / reproducing apparatus.

On the other hand, among the above-mentioned search information, search information such as a patient identification ID number and a patient name is not automatically given, but needs to be newly associated with each ultrasonic image. That is, such information originally exists as character information in a part of the ultrasound image as described above, but is simply recorded as a part of the ultrasound image without discrimination from other information. It is not used as information for the purpose.

Therefore, conventionally, the following two methods have been used in order to use a patient identification ID number, a patient name, and the like as search information at the time of ultrasound image search.

The first method is a method of transmitting a digitally encoded ID number for patient identification, a patient name, and the like from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus to the image recording / reproducing apparatus. In this case, the two devices are connected by a digital signal line separately from the video signal line, necessary search information is transmitted via the digital signal line, and is recorded as a search information on a recording medium.

The second method is a method of inputting the search information by a manual operation using a keyboard or the like connected to the image recording / reproducing apparatus. This method is the first
This method is applied to the case where it is difficult to arrange digital signal lines between the two devices as in the method (1).

[0010]

However, in the first method, in order to perform digital transmission, it is necessary to newly equip the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus with dedicated hardware and software, and significant remodeling is required. Required. Therefore,
It cannot be directly connected to an existing ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus.

Also, in the second method, since the operation is performed by an artificial operation, an operator's labor is inevitably generated. In addition, it must be performed for each patient, which is complicated, and there is a fear that artificial input of search information may occur. The information to be entered is
It is unreasonable to input again in the image recording / reproducing device, even though it originally exists in the ultrasonic image.

In order to solve the above problems, the present invention does not require any special modification to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, does not require any special input operation in the image recording / reproducing apparatus, and provides the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus with An object of the present invention is to provide an ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus which can automatically generate and record necessary search information simply by connecting a video signal line.

[0013]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a video signal line for an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus which forms an ultrasonic image partially including character information for image management. An ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus connected via a device, a character recognizing unit that recognizes the character information in the ultrasonic image, a search information generating unit that generates the search information by encoding the character information, A storage unit that stores the ultrasound image and its search information in association with each other, and, when the search information is specified, a search playback unit that searches for and plays back the ultrasound image associated with the search information. , Is included.

Further, according to the present invention, the character recognizing means performs a binarization process on the ultrasonic image to generate a binarized image.
It is characterized by comprising a value processing means, and a pattern comparison means for performing pattern comparison on the binary image and recognizing the character information.

[0015]

The ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention is connected to the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus only by the video signal line, and does not require the above-mentioned digital signal line. Further, the character recognizing means performs character information recognition on the ultrasonic image transmitted from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, thereby extracting and utilizing the character information inherent in the ultrasonic image. Therefore, the above-mentioned artificial key input is not required.

That is, according to the present invention, search information similar to the related art can be generated by automatically recognizing character information in an ultrasonic image and encoding the character information. The search information is stored in association with the ultrasonic image, and at the time of image reproduction, the specified search information is searched, and a desired ultrasonic image is reproduced.

According to the present invention, when recognizing character information, first, a binarization process is performed on an ultrasonic image.
Since the luminance value of character information in an ultrasonic image is generally high and constant, it can be easily and clearly extracted by the binarization process. Further, by such processing, the amount of information can be reduced and character recognition can be performed quickly. Then, if pattern comparison is applied to the extracted character information, it is possible to specify what character each figure is.

[0018]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 shows a schematic configuration of a system including an ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus (hereinafter, referred to as an image recording / reproducing apparatus) 3 according to the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 1, this system is roughly divided into an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 for forming an ultrasonic image by transmitting and receiving ultrasonic waves, and an image recording / reproducing apparatus for recording / reproducing the ultrasonic image. 3 and a display device 2 for displaying an ultrasonic image.

In this embodiment, the image recording / reproducing device 3
Comprises a recording / reproducing unit 4 and a remote device 5. The recording and reproducing unit 4 stores an ultrasonic image (image signal of an ultrasonic image) transmitted as a video signal from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1, reproduces the stored ultrasonic image, and outputs the reproduced ultrasonic image to the display device 2. Things. The recording / reproducing unit 4 of the present embodiment recognizes character information in an ultrasonic image transmitted from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 to generate search information, and converts the search information into an image of the ultrasonic image, as described later. It is stored together with the information.

The remote device 5 is a device for inputting commands such as a search process and an edit process of an ultrasonic image stored in the recording / reproducing unit 4. These operations can also be basically performed using command keys on the front panel of the recording / reproducing unit 4. Note that instead of the remote device 5,
A personal computer that can be connected to the RS-232C terminal may be used.

The connection between the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 and the recording / reproducing unit 4 is made only through a general video signal line 6. That is, the ultrasonic image obtained by the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 is transmitted to the recording / reproducing unit 4 via the video signal line 6. Therefore, there is no need to arrange a special signal line such as a digital signal line between the two devices, and the image recording / reproducing device 3 can be easily connected to the existing ultrasonic diagnostic device 1.

In the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1, character information is inserted into a part of an ultrasonic image by image synthesis, as in the related art.
The character information includes, for example, a patient identification ID number, a patient name, and the like. In the following description, it is assumed that these two pieces of character information are included in the ultrasound image.

As will be described in detail later, the character information is recognized and extracted in the recording / reproducing unit 4 and stored as search information. On the other hand, the serial number and the creation date are generated in the recording / reproduction unit 4 as in the related art,
It is stored as search information. That is, in the present embodiment, each search information such as a patient identification ID number, a patient name, a serial number, and a creation date is used as search information. The connection between the recording / reproducing unit 4 and the display device 2 is made via a general video signal line 7. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a detailed internal configuration of the recording / reproducing unit 4.

In FIG. 2, a recording / reproducing unit 4 includes an analog / digital converter (A / D) 40, a frame memory 42, and a digital / analog converter (D / A).
41, an image compression / decompression circuit 43, a binarization circuit 44, a binarization image memory 45, a signal control circuit 46, a storage medium 47, and a memory 48 with built-in character recognition software.

The signal control circuit 46 comprises a central processing unit (CPU) 461 and a search information memory 462. The search information memory 462 includes a rewritable R
AM (for example, SRAM or DRAM) is used.

As will be described later, the storage medium 47 stores
The compressed ultrasound image and search information are stored in association with each other, and include an image storage unit 471 and a search information storage unit 472. Here, the storage medium 47 stores a plurality of ultrasonic images in a database.
For example, a large capacity magneto-optical disk (MO
Disc).

Next, the storing operation and the reproducing operation of the image recording / reproducing apparatus 3 will be described in detail with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 2, an ultrasonic image obtained by the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 is transmitted to the recording / reproducing unit 4 via the video signal line 6 as an analog video signal. As described above, the ultrasonic image includes the character information of the patient identification ID number and the patient name.

The transmitted ultrasonic image is converted into an 8-bit digital signal for each pixel by the analog / digital converter 40 (S80), and written into the frame memory 42 (S90). Next, when an instruction to save an ultrasonic image is issued from the remote device 5 via the central processing unit 461 of the signal control circuit 46, the ultrasonic image stored in the frame memory 42 is read out and the image compression / decompression circuit The data is compressed in 43 (S91), and then written into the image storage unit 471 of the storage medium 47 (S89).

On the other hand, the ultrasonic image converted into a digital signal is binarized by a binarization circuit 44 in order to reduce the amount of information from 8 bits to 1 bit for each pixel and perform rapid character recognition.
Value processing is performed. Then, the binarized image is written into the binarized image memory 45 (S81).

Since a tomographic image portion and a blood flow image portion in an ultrasonic image generally have dispersed luminance values, for example, even when character information and a tomographic image are superimposed. By appropriately setting the threshold value of the binarization process and applying appropriate high-cut filtering, character recognition for character information can be performed without being affected by a tomographic image or the like.

In parallel with the writing process, the central processing unit 461 executes a character recognition program stored in the memory 48 with built-in character recognition software, and performs the following processing. First, the central processing unit 461 accesses the binarized image memory 45 and specifies the location of the reference information in the binarized image (S82). In other words, even when the display position of the character information in the ultrasonic image is not constant due to the difference in the model of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 or the like, the reference information is searched first to accurately perform the character recognition. Is done. In this embodiment, a figure called "ID" which is always displayed in each ultrasonic image is adopted as reference information. That is, in the ultrasonic image, “ID: xxxx
“×” is displayed (for example, the ID number is 4 digits), and the first two characters “ID” are used as reference information. A window is set to determine which window contains the reference information “ID.” Note that the position of the character information fluctuates between ultrasonic images due to image synchronization deviation or the like. However, according to the acquisition of the position of the reference information according to the present embodiment, there is an advantage that character recognition can be performed without being affected by such a change.

When the position of the reference information is obtained by the above processing, the position of the ID number and the patient name can be easily specified from the positional relationship with respect to the position of the reference information (reference coordinates). That is, it is possible to specify an area where character recognition is to be performed.
Since the model of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 is determined by extracting the reference information, the font (character style) of the character recognition pattern is also switched.

In this embodiment, one or a plurality of pieces of character information among the character information included in the ultrasonic image are extracted. Here, each character information is generally composed of a plurality of characters (characters, symbols, and numbers). Therefore, a segmentation process is executed to cut out each character (S83). For example, when character recognition is performed on a four-digit ID number, character information is separated into four blocks corresponding to individual characters. Then, the figures in each block are stored in a work area (memory area in memory) managed by the character recognition software.

Next, the stored blocks (graphics) are individually read out, and character recognition is performed by pattern comparison (S84, S85). In character recognition,
In the present embodiment, a large classification process based on feature amount extraction is applied (S84). More specifically, each block cut out by the segmentation process is divided into a plurality of stages (for example, four stages) in the vertical direction, and by extracting feature amounts of the figures in the divided block elements, all the character patterns are extracted. Some of the character patterns with high matching are narrowed down as candidates. Here, each character pattern is classified in advance for each feature amount and held as a table.

Then, pattern comparison is performed on the graphics in the block extracted by the segmentation process while calculating the so-called Hamming distance Hd for each of the candidate character patterns. Next, the character pattern with the smallest Hamming distance Hd is determined, and as a result, what kind of character the figure is is recognized (S85). Then, the above processing is performed on each figure, and finally, the content of the character information is recognized.

Various methods can be used for character recognition. However, quick character recognition can be realized by employing the above method.

When a character is recognized, the character is converted to an ASCII code (American Standard Code for Information In).
terchange) (S86), whereby the character information becomes information (search information) that can be used for search.

Next, the coded character information is temporarily written and stored in the search information memory 462 (S8).
8) Then, it is written into the search information storage unit 472 of the storage medium 47 (S89). That is, in this embodiment, the ID
The number and the patient name are stored as search information in association with the ultrasound image.

On the other hand, search information such as a serial number and a creation date and time that can be generated by the image recording / reproducing apparatus 3 itself is once written in the search information memory 462 (S88), and then written in the search information storage unit 472 of the storage medium 47. (S
89). The serial number can be easily created by sequentially counting the number of transmitted ultrasonic images, and the creation date and time can be easily created based on an output signal of a built-in clock.

FIG. 4 shows a file structure in the storage medium 47.

As shown in FIG. 4, this file includes a search information storage unit 472 and an image storage unit 471.
The search information storage unit 472 includes a storage area for each search information such as a serial number, a creation date, a patient identification ID number, and a patient name. The image storage unit 471 is a storage area for a compressed ultrasonic image. As is apparent from the illustrated file structure, the stored search information and the ultrasound image are associated with each other. For example, when a patient identification ID number is specified, that number is searched and associated therewith. Ultrasound image can be specified.

As described above, since the character information in the ultrasonic image can be recognized and the character information can be automatically used as the search information, the special data transfer from the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus 1 or the image recording / reproducing apparatus No special input at 3 is required.
In this embodiment, since the character recognition uses the binarization processing and the pattern recognition processing based on the large classification, the processing time can be reduced.

Finally, the search / reproduction operation will be described.
The ultrasonic images stored in the storage medium 47 can be read out in the order of serial numbers, and one or a plurality of pieces of search information can be designated to read out desired ones. In the present embodiment, since the serial number, the creation date, the patient identification ID number, the patient name, and the like are stored as search information, these can be used as search keys. The read ultrasonic image is expanded by the image compression / expansion circuit 43, transmitted to the display device 2, and displayed.

[0047]

As described above, according to the present invention,
Character information included in an ultrasonic image is automatically extracted and can be used as search information. Therefore, it can be easily connected to the existing ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus only by the video signal line,
Modification of the ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus and complicated input operations can be eliminated. Further, according to the present invention, quick and accurate character recognition can be performed.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a main configuration of an ultrasonic diagnostic system including an ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a detailed configuration of the ultrasonic diagnostic system.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart illustrating the operation of the ultrasonic diagnostic system.

FIG. 4 is a file layout diagram of a storage medium of the ultrasonic diagnostic system.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 ultrasonic diagnostic device 2 display device 3 ultrasonic image recording / reproducing device 4 recording / reproducing unit 5 remote device 6, 7 video signal line 43 image compression / decompression circuit 44 binarization circuit 45 binarized image memory 46 signal control circuit 47 storage Medium 48 Memory with built-in character recognition software 461 Central processing unit 462 Search information memory 471 Image storage 472 Search information storage

──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuation of the front page (56) References Japanese Utility Model Sho 64-54514 (JP, U) Japanese Utility Model Sho 61-171910 (JP, U) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A61B 8/00-8/15

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. An ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus connected via a video signal line to an ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus in which an ultrasonic image partially including character information for image management is formed, Character recognition means for recognizing character information in an ultrasonic image; search information generation means for encoding the character information to generate search information; storage means for storing the ultrasonic image and the search information in association with each other An ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus, comprising: and a retrieval / reproduction means for retrieving and reproducing an ultrasonic image associated with the retrieval information when the retrieval information is specified. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the character recognizing unit performs a binarization process on the ultrasonic image to generate a binarized image; An ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus, comprising: a pattern comparing unit that performs pattern comparison on the pattern and recognizes the character information. 3. The ultrasonic image recording / reproducing apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the character information is information for identifying a patient.