Image Compression and Analysis

A computer-based biomedical image handling system, comprising:

• A. An interface receiving or accessing subject image data of a biological mass, the interface obtaining a sequence of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along an axis in a third spatial dimension, each two-dimensional image unit being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the axis, the obtaining including obtaining different sequences of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along respective orthogonal axes, each two-dimensional image unit of a sequence being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the respective axis of the sequence, different sequences having different orthogonal axes at different tile positions across the respective planes, the obtaining resulting in a plurality of sequences serving as tiles and representative of image volumes capturing in three spatial dimensions different portions of the biological mass, different sequences of the plurality being different tiles representing different image volumes;
• B. a tile processing module communicatively coupled to the interface, and during image acquisition, the tile processing module being automatically executed by a digital processor and processes each tile independently by:
• i) compressing image data of tile areas of low information content and maintaining full resolution of high information content areas resulting in an adaptive sampling representation of the tile;
• ii) determining relative tile position with respect to other tiles;
• iii) segmenting the adaptive sampling representation of the tile for objects of interest, the segmenting including extracting object features and respective object positions;
• and
• iv) storing in a datastore in computer memory the adaptive sampling representation of the tile, the determined tile position, the segmented objects, the extracted object features, and object positions, the storing being in a manner such that the datastore stores individual tile positions and reduced amounts of the subject image data instead of storing source images of the biological mass;
• C. an aggregation module responsive to the tile processing module, the aggregation module aggregating the segmented objects stored in the datastore, wherein aggregating includes automatically merging segmented objects that appear twice or more on neighboring tiles resulting in a working list of segmented objects, object positions, and features stored in the datastore;
• and
• D. an output assembly having contents based on the adaptive sampling representations of tiles, tile positions, and the working list of segmented objects as stored in the datastore, and the output assembly being configured such that a single loading of tiles therefrom forming a complete image at full resolution of the biological mass in part or whole, the single loading of tiles relieving necessity of additional computer memory and/or processor resources for any of:
• storing, retrieving, communicating, distributing, processing, analyzing, displaying, and combinations thereof of the complete image.

A computer-implemented image handling method, comprising:

• A. For given image data of a biological mass, obtaining a sequence of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along an axis in a third spatial dimension, each two-dimensional image unit being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the axis, obtaining different sequences of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along respective orthogonal axes, each two-dimensional image unit of a sequence being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the respective axis of the sequence, different sequences having different orthogonal axes at different tile positions across the respective planes, the obtaining resulting in a plurality of sequences serving as tiles and representative of image volumes capturing in three spatial dimensions different portions of the biological mass, different sequences of the plurality being different tiles representing different image volumes;
• B. Automatically by a computer processor processing each tile independently by:
• i) Compressing image data of tile areas of low information content and maintaining high resolution of high information content areas resulting in an adaptive sampling representation of the tile,
• ii) Determining relative tile position with respect to other tiles,
• iii) Segmenting the adaptive sampling representation of the tile for objects of interest, the segmenting including extracting object features and respective object positions,
• iv) Storing in a datastore in computer memory, the adaptive sampling representation of the tile, the determined tile position, the segmented objects, the extracted object features, and object positions, the storing being in a manner such that the datastore stores individual tile positions and reduced amounts of the given image data instead of storing source images of the biological mass;
• C. aggregating the segmented objects stored in the datastore, wherein aggregating includes automatically merging segmented objects that appear twice or more on neighboring tiles resulting in a working list of segmented objects stored in the datastore;
• and
• D. based on the adaptive sampling representations of tiles, tile positions, and working list of segmented objects as stored in the datastore, single loading tiles and forming therefrom a complete image at full resolution of the biological mass, in part or in whole, the single loading of tiles relieving necessity of additional computer memory and/or processor resources for any of:
• storing, retrieving, communicating, distributing, processing, analyzing, displaying, and combinations thereof of the complete image.

A computer-based biomedical image handling system, comprising:

• A. An interface receiving or accessing subject image data of a biological mass, the interface obtaining a sequence of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along an axis in a third spatial dimension, each two-dimensional image unit being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the axis, the obtaining including obtaining different sequences of two-dimensional image units at increasing depth along respective orthogonal axes, each two-dimensional image unit of a sequence being an n×m pixels frame in a respective parallel plane orthogonal to the respective axis of the sequence, different sequences having different orthogonal axes at different tile positions across the respective planes, the obtaining resulting in a plurality of sequences serving as tiles and representative of image volumes capturing in three spatial dimensions different portions of the biological mass, different sequences of the plurality being different tiles representing different image volumes;
• B. a tile processing module communicatively coupled to the interface, the tile processing module being automatically executed by a digital processor and processes each tile independently by:
• i) compressing image data of tile areas of low information content and maintaining full resolution of high information content areas resulting in an adaptive sampling representation of the tile;
• ii) determining relative tile position with respect to other tiles;
• iii) segmenting the adaptive sampling representation of the tile for objects of interest, the segmenting including extracting object features and respective object positions;
• and
• iv) storing in a datastore in computer memory the adaptive sampling representation of the tile, the determined tile position, the segmented objects, the extracted object features, and object positions, the storing being in a manner such that the datastore stores individual tile positions and reduced amounts of the subject image data instead of storing source images of the biological mass;
• C. an aggregation module responsive to the tile processing module, the aggregation module aggregating the segmented objects stored in the datastore, wherein aggregating includes automatically merging segmented objects that appear twice or more on neighboring tiles resulting in a working list of segmented objects, object positions, and features stored in the datastore;
• and
• D. an output assembly having contents based on the adaptive sampling representations of tiles, tile positions, and the working list of segmented objects as stored in the datastore, and the output assembly being configured such that a single loading of tiles therefrom forming a complete image at full resolution of the biological mass in part or whole, the single loading of tiles relieving necessity of additional computer memory and/or processor resources for any of:
• storing, retrieving, communicating, distributing, processing, analyzing, displaying, and combinations thereof of the complete image.