Methods and systems for automatic control of subjective image quality in imaging of objects

A control system for automatic control of image quality in ultrasound imaging of an object using an ultrasound system including a transmitter/receiver for transmitting/receiving ultrasound image signals into the object/from the object using selected system parameter sets of the ultrasound system, wherein the ultrasound system has a number of different system parameter sets based on an image ranking measure reflecting at least one subjective expert opinion of a pre-defined set of ultrasound images, and an ultrasound image processor configured to process the sets of signals into ultrasound images, each image being associated with a system parameter set of the number of different system parameter sets,

• wherein the control system is configured to determine the image ranking measure by:
• comparing images from the pre-defined set of images where each image is associated with at least one image ranking measure indicating predetermined image features of respective image, said predetermined image features reflecting level of correlation with the expert opinion;
• comparing selected pairs of images based on their relative quality, the relative quality being based on the predetermined image features of respective image;
• establishing an image quality measure list based on the comparison when at least one predetermined ranking condition has been met;
• and
• providing the system parameter sets based on output from an expert unit, wherein the image quality measure list is used to train a learning system of the expert unit, and wherein the control system includes an expert unit configured to:
• analyze the images with respect to at least one image quality feature to determine at least one image quality metric for each image;
• analyze the respective image quality metric for each image to identify an image associated with a highest image quality metric;
• select the system parameter set used for generating the image associated with the highest image quality metric as system parameter set for further ultrasound imaging of the object;
• and
• repeat one or more of the steps transmit/receive, process, analyze and select until at least one predetermined quality condition is satisfied, or until an operator manually terminates the process.

A method for automatic control of image quality in imaging of an object using an imaging system, comprising:

• transmitting/receiving image signals into the object/from the object using selected system parameter sets of the imaging system, wherein the imaging system has a number of different system parameter sets based on an image ranking measure reflecting at least one subjective expert opinion of a pre-defined set of images, and wherein the image ranking measure is based on:
• comparing images from the pre-defined set of images where each image is associated with at least one image ranking measure indicating predetermined image features of respective image, said predetermined image features reflecting level of correlation with the expert opinion;
• comparing selected pairs of images based on their relative quality, the relative quality being based on the predetermined image features of respective image;
• establishing an image quality measure list based on the comparison when at least one predetermined ranking condition has been met;
• and
• providing the system parameter sets based on output from an expert unit, wherein the image quality measure list is used to train a learning system of the expert unit;
• processing the sets of received signals into images, each image being associated with a system parameter set of the number of different system parameter sets;
• analyzing the images with respect to at least one image quality feature to determine an image quality metric for each image;
• analyzing the respective image quality metric for each image to identify an image associated with a highest image quality metric;
• selecting the system parameter set used for generating the image associated with the highest image quality metric as system parameter set for further imaging of the object;
• and
• repeating the steps transmitting/receiving, processing, analyzing and selecting until at least one predetermined quality condition is satisfied, or until an operator manually terminates the process.

A control system for automatic control of image quality in imaging of an object using an imaging system including signal generating means for generating and transmitting image generating signals into the object using selected system parameter sets of the imaging system, wherein the imaging system has a number of different system parameter sets based on an image ranking measure reflecting a subjective expert opinion of a pre-defined set of images, receiving means for receiving sets of signals from the object and an image processor configured to process the sets of signals into images, each image being associated with a system parameter set of the number of different system parameter sets,

• wherein the control system is configured to determine the image ranking measure by:
• comparing images from the pre-defined set of images where each image is associated with at least one image ranking measure indicating predetermined image features of respective image, said predetermined image features reflecting level of correlation with the expert opinion;
• comparing selected pairs of images based on their relative quality, the relative quality being based on the predetermined image features of respective image;
• establishing an image quality measure list based on the comparison when at least one predetermined ranking condition has been met;
• and
• providing the system parameter sets based on output from an expert unit, wherein the image quality measure list is used to train a learning system of the expert unit, and
• wherein the control system includes an expert unit configured to:
• analyze the images with respect to at least one image quality feature to determine at least one image quality metric for each image;
• analyze the respective image quality metric for each image to identify an image associated with a highest image quality metric;
• select the system parameter set used for generating the image associated with the highest image quality metric as system parameter set for further imaging of the object;
• and
• repeat the steps transmit/receive, process, analyze and select until at least one predetermined quality condition is satisfied, or until an operator manually terminates the process.