# US 7,609,876 B2 · Virtual grid alignment of sub-volumes

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- Number: US 7,609,876 B2
- Document ID: US7609876B2
- Status: Granted
- Kind: B2
- Application number: 11/255,263
- Filed: 2005-10-21
- Published: 2006-07-20
- Granted: 2009-10-27
- Earliest claimed: 2004-10-22
- Assignees: Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc.
- Inventors: Sarang Lakare; Luca Bogoni
- Web page: https://patentgrep.com/patent/US7609876B2

## CPC

- G06T 7/0012: {Biomedical image inspection}
- G06T 19/20: Editing of three-dimensional [3D] images, e.g. changing shapes or colours, aligning objects or positioning parts
- G06T 2219/2004: Aligning objects, relative positioning of parts
- G06T: IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL

## Abstract

A computer-implemented method for aligning sub-volumes includes receiving a data volume, providing a plurality of parameters of the sub-volumes, and determining a start point of each of the two or more sub-volume according to the plurality of parameters. The method further includes determining an amount of mis-alignment of the two or more sub-volumes, and shifting a start point of each sub-volume to align the start points with a grid of a virtual volume. The method may include determining a feature in the two or more sub-volumes, which have been aligned. The method may include visualizing the aligned sub-volumes.

## Claims

### Claim 1

A computer readable medium embodying a program of instructions executable by a processor to perform method steps for aligning sub-volumes for feature extraction, the method steps comprising:
receiving a data volume;
providing a plurality of parameters of the sub-volumes;
determining a start point of each of the two or more sub-volume according to the plurality of parameters;
determining an amount of mis-alignment of the two or more sub-volumes;
shifting a start point of each sub-volume to align the start points with a grid of a virtual volume; and
determining a feature in the two or more sub-volumes, which have been aligned.

### Claim 2 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein shifting the start points is performed only with respect to one or two axes of the sub-volumes.

### Claim 3 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the sub-volumes are two-dimensional.

### Claim 4 (depends on 3)

The computer readable medium of claim 3, wherein the features are determined on the two-dimensional sub-volumes.

### Claim 5 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein an alignment of the start points is determined on three or more dimensions.

### Claim 6 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, the method further comprising selecting one or more dimensions, wherein an alignment of the start points is determined on the selected dimensions.

### Claim 7 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein an alignment of the start points is applied to across different modalities that have been pre-registered.

### Claim 8 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein providing the plurality of parameters comprises:
selecting a center point of each of two or more sub-volumes;
selecting a size and a shape of the two or more sub-volumes; and
selecting a spacing between voxels in the two or more sub-volumes.

### Claim 9 (depends on 8)

The computer readable medium of claim 8, the method further comprising converting the voxel-spacing to volume units.

### Claim 10 (depends on 8)

The computer readable medium of claim 8, the method further comprising extracting the two or more sub-volumes from the volume, prior to extracting the feature, using the start points and the voxel spacing in volume units.

### Claim 11 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein determining the start point of each of the two or more sub-volume is performed according to the center point, the sub-volume and the voxel-spacing.

### Claim 12 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the amount of mis-alignment is determined with respect to the grid of the virtual volume, wherein a spacing of the virtual volume grid is the spacing between voxels of the sub-volume, and an origin of the grid of the virtual volume coincides with an origin of a world coordinate system.

### Claim 13 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, the method further comprising converting shifted start points to volume coordinates with a (0,0,0) position of each sub-volume as the origin.

### Claim 14 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the two or more sub-volumes have different resolutions.

### Claim 15 (depends on 1)

The computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the data volume includes two or more data volumes representing different modalities.

### Claim 16

A computer readable medium embodying instructions executable by a processor to perform a method for aligning sub-volumes for visualization, comprising:
receiving a data volume;
providing a plurality of parameters of the sub-volumes;
determining a start point of each of the two or more sub-volume according to the plurality of parameters;
determining an amount of mis-alignment of the two or more sub-volumes;
shifting a start point of each sub-volume to align the start points with a grid of a virtual volume; and
displaying the sub-volumes having aligned start points, wherein a region of interest in each sub-volume has identical voxel values.

### Claim 17 (depends on 16)

The computer readable medium of claim 16, wherein providing the plurality of parameters comprises:
selecting a center point of each of two or more sub-volumes;
selecting a size and a shape of the two or more sub-volumes; and
selecting a spacing between voxels in the two or more sub-volumes.

### Claim 18 (depends on 17)

The computer readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising converting the voxel-spacing to volume units.

### Claim 19 (depends on 17)

The computer readable medium of claim 17, the method further comprising extracting the two or more sub-volumes from the volume, prior to displaying the sub-volumes, using the start points and the voxel spacing in volume units.