JPH05336322A - Image display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide an image display device supporting a browsing operation by displaying browsing information having the contents of the position of a displayed image, a browsing direction and remaining amount, with the displayed image. CONSTITUTION:This picture display device is characterized by being provided with an image memory 5 storing a number of images, a display means 10 displaying images to be outputted from this image memory 5, a control device 1 arraying a number of images, recognizing them and controlling the output of the storage means 5 based on this array and a browsing information processor 8 measuring the position in the arrays of images to be outputted from the image memory 5 and supplying this positional information to the display means 10.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an image display device which employs a browsing technique for switching a display image so that pages of a book are turned one by one.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art According to an image display device adopting such a browsing technique, a plurality of images (image groups) satisfying a certain condition are selected from an image disc storing a large number of images, and the image group is selected. By arranging and arranging the respective images of (1) according to a certain standard, this image group can be treated as one book. The observer can arbitrarily adjust the turning direction of the previous page or the next page (hereinafter referred to as "browsing direction") and the speed thereof by appropriately operating the input device such as the keyboard, the mouse and the trackball. As a result, the display images can be switched with the same feeling as turning pages of a book one by one. As described above, the browsing technique is close to the human habitual feeling of turning pages, and therefore has rapidly spread and has become an indispensable technique for image display devices.

In the medical field as well, image display devices adopting such a browsing technique have become widespread and have greatly contributed to the efficiency of image interpretation work. When diagnosing a medical image, it is often impossible to uniquely specify an image suitable for image interpretation, for example, an image showing an optimally captured region of interest or an image into which a contrast agent has flowed in, from the beginning of the search. , Therefore, multiple images (image groups) are extracted from a wide range to some extent,
Each image of the image group is sequentially switched and displayed, and the displayed image is observed, and the observer himself determines whether the image is suitable for the above-mentioned image interpretation or another image. It is desirable to shorten the judgment and the operation of switching the images as much as possible, and the browsing technique contributes to simplification of the image switching operation.

When performing a browsing operation using a conventional image display device, the observer is always aware of the image group scale (image arrangement order and the number of images), and the position of the displayed image and the browsing direction (page turning direction). It is desirable to understand the contents such as the remaining amount. This is a wasteful browsing operation that is against your will, for example, the browsing direction is wrongly specified regardless of whether the image you want to display is the image on the next page of the currently displayed image, so the image on the previous page is displayed. This is to avoid useless browsing operations such as being lost.

However, it is practically difficult to grasp the above-mentioned contents at the same time while judging whether or not the image is an image of interest or an image other than that, and therefore it is often difficult to perform unnecessary browsing operation. will have to go.
At present, an image display device that copes with this point has not been provided yet.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to address the above-mentioned circumstances, and its purpose is to allow an observer to recognize browsing information including the position of a display image, the browsing direction, and the remaining amount. It is an object of the present invention to provide an image display device that supports browsing operations and eliminates unnecessary browsing operations by providing such an easy-to-use form, thereby improving the efficiency of image diagnosis work.

[0007]

An image display device according to the present invention has a storage means for storing a large number of images, a display means for displaying an image output from the storage means, and an arrangement of the plurality of images. And the control means for controlling the output of the storage means based on this array, and the means for measuring the position of the image output from the storage means in the array and supplying this position information to the display means. It is characterized by having.

[0008]

According to the image display device of the present invention, it is possible to display the position information of the image output from the storage means for storing a large number of images in the arrangement of the large number of images together with the image.

[0009]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the image display device according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of this embodiment. An input device 2 such as a keyboard, a mouse, or a trackball is connected to the control device 1, and the control device 1 specifies an image to be displayed next according to an instruction from the input device 2 and determines a display switching timing. The browsing control signal for instructing is output. Further, the control device 1 is provided with an image disk device 4, an image memory 5, an image memory device 5 via a bus 3 for sharing data / control signals.
Central processing unit (CPU) 6, display port 9, and CR
A T (cathode ray tube) display 10 is connected. The image disk device 4 is an X-ray diagnostic device, an ultrasonic diagnostic device, an X-ray CT device, a magnetic resonance imaging device (MR).
I) or a device for storing an image obtained by an image acquisition device such as a nuclear medicine device or an endoscope, which is equipped with a storage medium such as a magnetic disk or an optical disk and its management means, and stores a large amount of images. Store and search for images. This image group is composed of a series of slice images acquired in a certain examination of a patient using an X-ray CT apparatus, for example. The image memory 5 stores and arranges each image of this image group according to a predetermined reference such as a slice position and a collection time, and should be displayed next according to a browsing control signal supplied from the control device 1. One or a plurality of images are selectively supplied to the display port 9.
Since the image group is arranged and stored in the image memory 5 as described above, the observer can easily operate by appropriately operating the input device 2 without recognizing detailed information such as the number of each image. You can browse to.

The central processing unit 6 has an image processing unit 7 and a browsing information processing unit 8 which are provided with various image processing means such as image reduction processing, binarization processing and contour line emphasis processing. The browsing information processing device 8 is the control device 1.
Input the browsing control signal output from, the position of the image displayed according to the signal with respect to the image group scale (arrangement order, the number of images), the direction of browsing,
The remaining amount is calculated, browsing information is created, and the browsing information is supplied to the display port 9.

The display port 9 forms a display screen from the image supplied from the image memory 5 and the browsing information supplied from the browsing information processing device 8, and CR
Supply to a T (cathode ray tube) display 10.

Next, the operation of the image display device configured as described above will be described focusing on the configuration of the display screen and its change. 2 and 3 are views showing display examples of this display screen, and the observer appropriately selects and uses one of the display screens during the image interpretation work. In the following, area A is a range in which browsing information is displayed, and area B is a range in which an image is displayed.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a display screen suitable for displaying an image group composed of a plurality of slice images having continuous slice positions, and FIG. 2 (a) shows one image. It is the case of the single frame display method that displays a single
FIG. 2B shows a case of a multi-frame display method in which a plurality of images are divided and displayed. The browsing information is the model image 12 and the line cursor 11 indicating the position of the display image.
And arrows 13a and 13b selectively displayed to show the browsing direction, and a bar graph 14 showing the remaining amount. In the case of the multi-frame display method as shown in FIG. 2B, this is dealt with by adjusting the width of the line cursor 11 'according to the number of frames for simultaneous display.

At the time of browsing operation, the controller 1
A browsing control signal is supplied from the browsing information processing device 8 to the image memory 5, whereby the display image is switched in conjunction with the operation of the input device 2 and the display position of the line cursor 11 is the arrangement position of the display image. The arrow 13a or 13b corresponding to the browsing direction is selectively displayed, and the bar portion (black portion) of the bar graph 14 expands or contracts in the horizontal direction according to the remaining amount. To do. The observer can confirm the current position of the display image and the browsing status from the browsing information, and can perform an accurate browsing operation.

FIG. 3 shows an example of a display screen suitable for displaying an image group composed of a plurality of images whose slice positions are not continuous, and FIG. 3A shows the case of a single frame display system. 3B shows the case of the multi-frame display method. As shown in FIG. 3A, the browsing information is obtained by reducing each image of the image group, arranging the reduced images 15 according to the arrangement of the image memory 5 and displaying a list, and enclosing the reduced image 15 with a frame cursor 16. A display image is thereby shown. The browsing direction and the remaining amount are provided by the arrows 13a and 13b and the bar graph 14 as in FIG. In the case of the multi-frame display method shown in FIG. 3B, the size and shape of the frame cursor 16 'are adjusted by adjusting the number of frames and their positional relationship.

At the time of browsing operation, the input device 2
The display image is switched in conjunction with the operation of, and the frame cursor 16 moves so as to surround the reduced image of the display image, and the arrow 13a or 13 depending on the browsing direction is displayed.
b is selectively displayed, and the bar (black portion) of the bar graph 14 expands and contracts in the left-right direction on the paper surface according to the remaining amount, and the observer can use the browsing information to arrange the display image and other images. You can easily check the current browsing status. As shown in FIGS. 3C and 3D, the image number 15 ′ may be displayed instead of the reduced image 15. In addition, when each image of the image group is displayed as a list of reduced images or image numbers in this way, the browsing direction is not limited to a one-dimensional direction along the arrangement direction of the image memory 5, but a two-dimensional display such as an interlaced display. This can be dealt with even in the case of the target direction. In this case, as shown in FIG. 3E, the arrows 13a and 13b are displayed to correspond to the two-dimensional movement of the frame cursor 16.
The direction is changed to an arrow 13 'that can be selectively displayed and displayed. In addition, when the number of images in the image group exceeds the number of displayed images in the list, a scroll technique is used to easily cope with it, as shown in FIG.

It should be noted that the contents of the browsing information, that is, the image position, the direction of the browsing, and the remaining amount are not all displayed as shown in FIG. 2 and FIG. You may make it display only a direction and a remaining amount. FIG. 4 (a) is a diagram showing an example of a main menu displayed for this selection using the icon technology, and FIG. 4 (b) is a diagram showing a display example by this selection. As shown in FIG. 4A, the main menu 18 includes a direction menu 18a, a remaining amount menu 18b,
It is composed of a position menu 18c and an OK menu 18d, and an observer operates a mouse (which may be shared with the input device 2) to move a cursor (not shown) to obtain a desired menu, for example, a direction menu 18a and a remaining amount menu. 1
Specify 8b. Then, by similarly specifying the OK menu 18d, as shown in FIG. 4B, only the arrow 13a or 13b indicating the browsing direction and the bar graph 14 indicating the remaining amount can be displayed. The cancel menu 19 is a menu for returning to the main menu 18.

In addition to the selection of the content of the browsing information shown in FIG. 4, a display method of the image position in the content,
That is, the display method of displaying the model image 12 and the line cursor 11 as shown in FIG. 2 and the display method of displaying a list of reduced images and image numbers as shown in FIG. 3 may be selectable.
The selection of the display method of the position information is performed using the submenu 20 shown in FIG. This submenu 20
Is displayed when the position menu 18c of the main menu 18 shown in FIG.
When the position menu 18c is specified together with the remaining amount menu 18b of the main menu 18 as indicated by the diagonal lines in (a),
The submenu 20 is displayed. The submenu 20 is
It is composed of a position menu 20a, an image number menu 20b, a reduced image menu 20c and an OK menu 20d. The position menu 20a is a menu for designating the display of the model image 12 and the line cursor 11 as shown in FIG. The image number menu 20b is shown in FIG.
A menu for designating a list display of image numbers as shown in (c) and (d), and the reduced image menu 20c is shown in FIG.
It is a menu for designating a list display of reduced images as shown in (a) and (b). By specifying any one of them, or by specifying the image number menu 20b and the reduced image menu 20c in combination, and further specifying the OK menu 20d, the position and remaining amount information as shown in FIG. 5C is displayed. Note that FIG. 5C shows the image number menu 2
0b, the reduced image menu 20c, and the remaining amount menu 18b are combined and designated.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the observer can perform the browsing operation while referring to the browsing information, that is, the position of the display image, the browsing direction, and the remaining amount, and thus the wasteful browsing operation is performed. It is possible to efficiently proceed with the image diagnosis without performing it.

The present invention is not limited to the above-mentioned embodiments, but can be modified in various ways. For example, in the above description, the browsing information and the image are multi-displayed on one CRT display, but two CRT displays may be prepared and displayed individually.

[0021]

As described above, according to the present invention, it is possible to provide an observer with browsing information together with an image, and thereby the observer can perform a browsing operation accurately, so that image diagnostic work can be performed. Can proceed efficiently.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a display screen displayed on the CRT display shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing another example of a display screen displayed on the CRT display shown in FIG.

FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating a modified example that enables selection of the content of browsing information displayed on the CRT display shown in FIG. 1.

5A and 5B are views for explaining a modification in which the content of the browsing information displayed on the CRT display shown in FIG. 1 and the display method of the image position can be selected.

[Explanation of symbols]

1 ... Control device, 2 ... Input device, 3 ... Data / control signal shared bus, 4 ... Image disk, 5 ... Image memory, 6 ...
CPU, 7 ... Image processing device, 8 ... Browsing information processing device, 9 ... Display port, 10 ... CRT display.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A storage unit for storing a large number of images, a display unit for displaying an image output from the storage unit, an array of the images for recognition, and the storage unit based on the array. An image display device comprising: a control unit that controls the output of the storage unit; and a unit that measures the position of the image output from the storage unit in the array and supplies the position information to the display unit.