Automatic reduction of interfering elements from an image stream of a moving organ

Apparatus for use with a portion of a body of a subject that undergoes a motion cycle, the apparatus comprising:

• an image-acquisition device configured to acquire a plurality of image frames of the portion of the subject's body;
• a display;
• and
• at least one processor configured to enhance the image frames with respect to a first given feature of the image frames, the processor comprising:
• image-tracking functionality configured to image track the image frames with respect to the first given feature;
• feature-identifying functionality configured to identify a second given feature in each of the image frames;
• image-processing functionality configured, in response to the identifying, to reduce visibility of the second given feature in the image frames;
• and
• display-driving functionality configured to drive the display to display, as a stream of image frames, the image frames that (a) have been image tracked with respect to the first given feature, and (b) have had reduced therein the visibility of the second given feature, wherein as a result of the motion cycle of the portion of the subject's body, the first given feature moves by an amount that is different from an amount of movement of the second given feature as a result of the motion cycle of the portion of the subject's body, and wherein the feature-identifying functionality is configured to identify the second feature using a filter selected from the group consisting of a spatial filter and a temporal filter.

A method for imaging a portion of a body of a subject that undergoes a motion cycle, the method comprising:

• acquiring a plurality of image frames of the portion of the subject's body;
• reducing visibility of a given feature within the image frames by masking the given feature in each of the image frames;
• and
• displaying, as a stream of image frames, the image frames in which the given feature has reduced visibility, wherein:
• acquiring the plurality of image frames comprises gating the image frames with respect to a given phase of the motion cycle,
• masking the given feature in each of the image frames comprises generating a mask based on an image frame that is gated with respect to the given phase of the motion cycle, and applying the mask to the gated image frames, and
• displaying the image frames comprises displaying the gated, masked image frames.

Apparatus for use with a portion of a body of a subject that undergoes a motion cycle, the apparatus comprising:

• an image acquisition device configured to acquire a plurality of image frames of the portion of the subject's body;
• a display;
• and at least one processor comprising:
• image-receiving functionality configured to receive the image frames into the processor,
• and masking functionality that is configured to reduce visibility of a given feature within the image frames by masking the given feature in each of the image frames;
• and
• display-driving functionality configured to drive the display to display, as a stream of image frames, the image frames in which the given feature has reduced visibility, wherein:
• the processor comprises gating functionality configured to gate the image frames with respect to a given phase of the motion cycle,
• the masking functionality is configured to generate a mask based on an image frame that is gated with respect to the given phase of the motion cycle, and to apply the mask to the gated image frames, and
• the display-driving functionality is configured to drive the display to display the gated, masked image frames.