JPH05232917A - Image display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an image display device capable of switching a display image by a simple operation. CONSTITUTION:The image display device is provided with an image memory 2 for storing plural images, a monitor 3 for displaying an image outputted from the memory 2, a mouse 5 for inputting a signal including operation distance information and operation direction information and a control means 4 for inputting the signal from the mouse 5, selecting an image to be outputted from the memory 2 to a monitor 3 out of plural images in accordance with the operation direction information and controlling the output timing of the selected image based upon the operation distance information.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an improvement in a technique for switching display images of an image display device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional example of such a device is a medical image display device. The medical image display device is a medical image acquired by a medical image acquisition device such as an X-ray imaging device, an ultrasonic diagnostic device, an X-ray computed tomography device (X-ray CT), or a magnetic resonance imaging device (MRI device) (hereinafter simply referred to as a medical image acquisition device. This device is used for the interpretation of "images". This medical image acquisition device is provided with a switching means for switching the display image. The image interpretation doctor can instruct the switching means to proceed with the image interpretation work while switching the images one by one.

Here, a keypad or a mouse is often used as a means for instructing the switching means. In the case of a keyboard, the next image or the previous image is displayed by tapping a predetermined key (normally the left and right keys for moving the cursor) once. On the other hand, if it is a mouse, a menu (icon) for image switching created in advance on the display screen is displayed, and by moving the cursor with the mouse and clicking the menu, the same as for the keyboard The next image or the previous image is displayed.

The conventional display image switching method as described above has the following drawbacks. (1) It is necessary to perform the operation of the predetermined key or mouse after waiting for the timing at which the display of the currently displayed image is completed and the switching means enters the instruction waiting state. For this reason,
If the image reading importance is not uniform, that is, if there is a mixture of a highly important image that should be interpreted over a long period of time and an image that has a relatively low importance that can be seen at a glance,
It is necessary to operate the keys at high speed while keeping this timing until a highly important image is displayed. It's very troublesome.

(2) Since the display is switched one image at a time in response to one key operation, the number of operations must be at least as many as the number of images, and a large number of images are interpreted. In this case, the image interpretation doctor (operator) needs to repeatedly perform a simple switching operation many times, and feels very tired.

(3) Interpretation work is often performed on a specific group basis, for example, on a patient basis, on an examination basis or on a modality (type of the medical image acquisition apparatus). When selecting an image with a relatively high degree of importance to be interpreted from those images and displaying that image, display switching is advanced in accordance with the display order in order to display the image that has not been displayed yet. Since the key and the key for reversing the display image to display the image already displayed once are different keys, the operation key must be selected according to the change of the display order. It is troublesome and requires a long time to specify the above-mentioned image of relatively high importance.

Here, in order to solve the above problems (1) and (2), the following method has been devised. The method is to display a list of a plurality of reduced images on one screen, and when the radiologist selects an image to be read, the selected image is displayed in large size in normal size. is there. However, this method requires the addition of a processing device that reduces the image and a processing device that enlarges the reduced image again to the normal size. Further, also in the image interpretation work, the image interpretation doctor needs to perform extra operations such as the list display operation and the selection operation, and it is difficult to concentrate only on the thinking operation for image interpretation. Further, there are many cases in which it is not possible to determine whether or not to read an image using a reduced image.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to address the above-mentioned circumstances, and an object thereof is to provide an image display device capable of switching display images by a simple operation. is there.

[0009]

An apparatus according to the present invention includes means for storing a plurality of images, image display means for displaying the images output from the storage means, operation distance information and operation direction information. A manual input member for inputting a signal and a signal is input from the manual input member, and an image to be output from the storage means to the image display means in accordance with operation direction information is selected from the plurality of images, And a control means for controlling the output timing of the selected image based on the operation distance information.

[0010]

According to the device of the present invention, by changing the moving operation speed and moving direction of the manual input member,
It is possible to select an image to be output from the storage means to the display means and change the output timing of the selected image.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS A first embodiment of the device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the image display apparatus according to the first embodiment, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of the control means shown in FIG. The information handled by the apparatus of this embodiment is the X-ray imaging apparatus, ultrasonic diagnostic apparatus, X-ray computer tomography apparatus (X
Line CT), a magnetic resonance imaging apparatus (MRI apparatus), or other medical image acquisition apparatus (hereinafter, simply referred to as “image”).

As shown in FIG. 1, the image display apparatus according to the first embodiment provides an image between an image file 1 such as a magnetic disk or an optical disk storing a large amount of image information and a monitor 3 displaying an image. The memory 2 intervenes. The image memory 2 interprets a relatively small number of image information groups (hereinafter referred to as “interpretation target image group”) selected from a large amount of image information stored in the image file 1 according to the purpose of this interpretation. It is temporarily stored only during the period.
By interposing the image memory 2, the display image can be searched at high speed and the display interval can be shortened. The output operation of the image information of the image memory 2 is performed under the control of the control means 4. The control means 4 reads the information from the mouse 5 and controls the output operation of the image memory 2 according to the information.

The mouse 5 is an input means that is operated by the operator to move back and forth and left and right. The method of the mouse 5 is such that the rotation of a ball provided inside is detected by two rotary encoders having orthogonal rotation axes,
A method to optically count the number of parallel lines that move across the surface on which a group of orthogonal parallel lines is drawn, and detect the moving distance from the duration of the frictional noise with the contact surface and the moving direction from the deviation from the contact surface Any of the following methods may be adopted. In either method, basically, the mouse 5 is controlled by the control means 4 according to the moving direction and moving distance of the moving operation.
The reference signal supplied from the device is changed over time. In other words, the mouse 5 supplies to the control means 4 a signal (hereinafter referred to as “instruction signal”) that faithfully reproduces the moving direction and moving distance instructed by the operator.

As shown in FIG. 2, the displacement direction / displacement amount detecting means 4a of the control means 4 receives an instruction signal from the mouse 5, and detects the displacement direction and the displacement amount from this instruction signal. Here, the displacement direction means the right direction or the left direction in the moving direction in which the forward and backward movement and the left and right movement are combined. Further, the displacement amount means a preset minute moving distance per unit time (actually, an amount corresponding to this moving distance). When the operator moves the mouse 5 at high speed, this displacement amount increases, while when the mouse 5 is moved slowly, this displacement amount decreases. The displacement direction / displacement amount detecting means 4a outputs the displacement direction and this displacement amount every time the above unit time elapses while the instruction signal is input from the mouse 5.

The switching timing determining means 4b inputs the displacement direction and the displacement amount from the displacement direction / displacement amount detecting means 4a, and mainly outputs the image switching timing signal using the displacement amount. Specifically, the switching timing determination means 4
In b, a comparison value for determining the length of the switching timing is set in advance, the displacement amounts supplied every moment are sequentially added, and the added value and the comparison value are constantly compared. Then, when the added value exceeds the comparison value, a timing signal is output, and the addition of the displacement amount and the comparison operation with the comparison value are started again. As a result, when the displacement amount is large, that is, when the mouse 5 is moved at high speed, the added value reaches the comparison value in a relatively short time, and the timing signal is output.
On the other hand, when the displacement amount is small, that is, when the mouse 5 is slowly moved, the addition value reaches the comparison value and the timing signal is output in a relatively long time.

When the timing signal is input from the switching timing determining means 4b, the display switching means 4c instructs the image memory 2 to output the image information to be displayed next, and switches the display image on the monitor 3. . The image information to be displayed next is determined as follows. The images forming the image interpretation target image group are usually ordered based on a predetermined rule such as early or late shooting of the images. The display switching means 4c recognizes this order in advance according to the above-mentioned rule designated from the outside, and determines the displacement direction /
The image information to be output next is determined according to the displacement direction input from the displacement amount detection means 4a via the switching timing determination means 4b. Specifically, when the displacement direction is the right direction, the image information in the rear order of the image information currently displayed in the above order is selected, while when the displacement direction is the left direction, The image information in the previous order of the image information currently displayed is selected in the reverse order of the above order. Next, a display image switching operation of the image display device configured as described above will be described.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining this operation. An image group to be interpreted (assuming 26 pieces of image information A to Z) has already been selected from the image file 1 and stored in the image memory 2, and the image information A to B, C, D
It is assumed that they are ordered in the order of Z. And
The image information currently displayed is image information D.

First, when the user wants to display the image information E next to the image information D, the operator moves the mouse 5 in the right direction D1,
The switching timing determining means 4b is gradually moved until it outputs a timing signal. When the images are read while switching the images one by one, this operation is repeated. When displaying the image information C, the mouse 5 may be moved in the left direction D2.

Next, from the image information D to the image information E, F,
When it is desired to switch the display images at high speed in the order of G ..., the mouse 5 may be moved in the right direction D1 at the high speed V1.
Then, if the movement operation of the mouse 5 is stopped, it can be stopped at a desired image. In addition, mouse 5 to the right D
If it is moved to 1 at a low speed, the displayed images are slowly switched in the order of image information E, F, G .... On the other hand, when it is desired to return from the image information D to the image information C, B or A that has already been displayed once, the mouse 5 may be moved in the left direction D2 at a desired speed.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the display order and the display interval of the images can be arbitrarily designated by changing the moving direction and the moving speed of the mouse. Therefore, images that can be judged to be insignificant at a glance can be switched and displayed at high speed by moving the mouse at high speed, and a plurality of images can be switched and displayed by one mouse operation. It is possible to retrieve and display the image in a short time and reduce the burden on the operator as the number of image switching operations is reduced. Further, as the display image switching operation is simplified as described above, the operation time can be reduced, and the total time of the image interpretation work can be reduced. The same effect can be obtained by replacing the mouse with a trackball. Next, a second embodiment will be described.

The apparatus of this embodiment inputs an image switching instruction by a keyboard operation instead of the mouse operation. The overall configuration is almost the same as that of FIG. 1 described in the previous embodiment, and only different parts will be described below.

First, a predetermined key on the keyboard, for example,
Two types of left and right keys for moving the cursor are set as means for inputting a signal for switching the image. The displacement direction can be designated by selectively operating the left and right keys.

Further, the displacement direction / displacement amount detection means of the control means determines whether the input signal from the keyboard is from one of the left and right keys, determines the displacement direction, and The displacement amount is gradually increased and output according to the duration. As a method for increasing the displacement amount, for example, the following method is used. In the case of the above-described first embodiment, a preset minute moving distance per unit time (actually, an amount corresponding to this moving distance) is detected and used as the displacement amount. In the present embodiment, a correspondence table in which each time period after the input of the input signal is input and the amount of non-uniform displacement is associated with each other is stored in the ROM or the like, and the input signal is continuously input. While the key is being held (while the operator keeps pressing the key), the displacement amount corresponding to the correspondence table is output every time a unit time elapses. The displacement amount can be changed by setting the correspondence table in advance so that the displacement amount gradually increases as the unit time elapses and becomes a constant value after the elapse of the constant time period. By setting the displacement amount change in this correspondence table as described above, when the operator starts pressing one of the left and right keys, the images are slowly switched,
If the button is continuously pressed as it is, the image switching interval is gradually shortened, and eventually the images are switched at a constant interval. The rate of change of the displacement amount in the correspondence table may be set empirically in consideration of convenience.

The displacement direction / displacement amount detecting means outputs the displacement direction and this displacement amount every time the above unit time elapses based on the correspondence table while inputting an input signal from the keyboard.

As described above, according to this embodiment as well, the same effect as that of the first embodiment can be obtained, and the unique effect which is not provided in the first embodiment can be obtained. That is,
In the case of the first embodiment, the operability is very good when switching a plurality of images at high speed, but a subtle operation is required when it is desired to switch the images back and forth by one or two (mouse). And so on). On the other hand, according to the present embodiment, when it is desired to switch the image back and forth by one or two, it is very convenient since the key operation is required as many times as the number of images.

The second embodiment may be modified as follows. For example, two types of right and left keys were used as the operation keys for switching the image, but two types of keys for moving the cursor up and down, for example, are also added. When the two types of keys for vertical movement are operated, the displacement amount is assigned to a value of a certain value after a certain time in the correspondence table from the beginning of the operation. Thus, if it is known in advance that the image information to be displayed next is ordered with a certain number of sheets separated from the image information that is currently displayed, the images are switched at high speed from the beginning of the key operation. Therefore, the image information desired to be displayed can be displayed in a short time.

The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, but can be modified in various ways. For example, in the above-described embodiment, it is not possible to recognize which image in the entire image interpretation image group the image information currently being displayed is in order. Therefore, the number of images in the image information that is currently displayed and the total number of images may be displayed so that the operator can recognize the number of images to be switched to some extent. It becomes very convenient. In this case, the order of the image information currently displayed and the total number of sheets can be detected easily by the display switching means in the control means which recognizes the ordering of the image interpretation image group.

[0029]

As described above, according to the present invention, means for storing a plurality of images, a monitor for displaying the images output from the storage means, a signal including operation distance information and operation direction information. A manual input member for inputting, inputting the signal from the manual input member, selecting an image to be output from the storage means to the image display means from the plurality of images according to operation direction information, And by providing a control means for controlling the output timing of the selected image based on the operation distance information, by changing the moving operation speed and moving direction of the manual input member,
To provide an image display device capable of selecting an image to be output from a storage means to a display means and changing an output timing of the selected image, thereby switching display images by a simple operation. You can

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a schematic configuration of an image display device according to a first embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a configuration of control means shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram for explaining the operation of the first embodiment device shown in FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... image file, 2 ... image memory, 3 ... monitor,
4 ... Control means, 5 ... Mouse, 4a ... Displacement direction / displacement amount detecting means, 4b ... Switching timing determining means, 4c ... Display switching means.

─────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continuation of the front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁵ Identification code Internal reference number FI Technical display location G06F 15/62 390 A 9287-5L G09G 5/00 A 8121-5G

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A means for storing a plurality of images, an image display means for displaying the images output from the storage means, and a manual input member for inputting a signal including operation distance information and operation direction information. , Inputting the signal from the manual input member, selecting an image to be output from the storage means to the image display means from the plurality of images according to the operation direction information, and based on the operation distance information An image display device comprising: a control unit that controls the output timing of the selected image. 2. The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the manual input member is a mouse. 3. The image display device according to claim 1, wherein the manual input member is a trackball.