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AssigneeApplied Materials, Inc.
InventorsParijat P. Prabhudesai, Ganesh Kumar Mohanur Raghunathan, Aditya Sista, Sumit Kumar Jha, Narasimha Murthy Chandan
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An imaging system includes a microscope to generate magnified images of regions of interest of a tissue sample, a camera to capture and store the magnified images, and a controller. The controller is configured to, for each magnification level in a sequence of increasing magnification levels, image one or more regions of interest of the tissue sample at the current magnification level. For each region of interest, data is generated defining one or more refined regions of interest based on the magnified image of the region of interest of the tissue sample at the current magnification level. Each refined region of interest corresponds to a proper subset of the tissue sample, and the refined regions of interest of the tissue sample provide the regions of interest to be imaged at a next magnification level from the sequence of increasing magnification levels.
A method performed by one or more data processing apparatus which comprises, for each magnification level in a sequence of increasing magnification levels:
One or more non-transitory computer readable storage media storing instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising, for each magnification level in a sequence of increasing magnification levels:
A system comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.
From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.
Inspection of images, e.g. flaw detection: biomedical image inspection
Segmentation; Edge detection: region-based segmentation
Segmentation; Edge detection: involving probabilistic approaches, e.g. Markov random field [MRF] modelling
Image analysis: determining position or orientation of objects or cameras
About 13 years 3 months of term left · ends 17 Jan 2040 (estimated)
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This specification relates to capturing and storing magnified images generated by a microscope.
A microscope can generate magnified images of a sample at any of a variety of magnification levels. The “magnification level” of an image refers to a measure of how large entities (e.g., cells) depicted in the image appear compared to their actual size. At higher magnification levels, a higher resolution image or a larger number of discrete images may be required to capture the same area of the sample as a single image at a lower magnification level, thus requiring more space in a memory during storage.
Magnified images of a tissue sample can be analyzed by a pathologist to determine if portions (or all) or the tissue sample are abnormal (e.g., cancerous). A pathologist can analyze magnified images of a tissue sample by viewing portions of the tissue sample which appear to be abnormal at higher magnification levels.
FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an example imaging system.
FIG. 2 illustrates example magnified images of regions of interest of a sample at different magnification levels.
FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an example process for imaging respective regions of interest of a sample at each magnification level in a sequence of increasing magnification levels.
Like reference numbers and designations in the various drawings indicate like elements.
FIG. 1 shows an example imaging system 100. The imaging system 100 is an example of a system implemented as computer programs on one or more computers in one or more locations in which the systems, components, and techniques described below are implemented.
The imaging system 100 uses a camera 102 to capture and store magnified images 104 of a sample 106 (e.g., a tissue sample) that are generated using a microscope 108. The system 100 generates magnified images 104 of respective regions of interest 110 of the sample 106 at different magnification levels 112. As will be described in more detail below, the system 100 can process a magnified image 104 of a region of interest 110 captured at a given magnification level 112 to determine one or more “refined” regions of interest 110 to be imaged at higher magnification levels 112.