Scanner with increased dynamic range
AssigneeHuron Technologies International Inc.
InventorsArthur Edward Dixon, Savvas Damaskinos
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An instrument and method for scanning all or part of a large specimen mounted on a specimen holder takes a plurality of measurements of each pixel in the whole or part of the specimen being scanned at a plurality of exposure values. A computer controls the movement of the specimen holder during scanning and again of the detector to produce a digitized image of all or part of the specimen with larger dynamic range than the dynamic range of the detection system. In a further embodiment, the instrument can scan two successive, identical strips at a different exposure values and combine the images from the two scans into one digitized image having a larger dynamic range than the dynamic range of the detection system.
Claims17
An instrument for scanning at least a part of a large specimen mounted on a specimen holder, the instrument comprising a light source, at least one lens to focus light from the light source, a detection system that comprises at least one detector, a computer programmed and configured to:
- a) take a plurality of measurements of each pixel at a plurality of exposure values;
- b) receive, process and store data received from the at least one detector;
- c) control a power output of the light source;
- d) control the movement of the specimen holder during scanning and a gain of the at least one detector to produce a digitized image of the at least one part of the specimen with a larger dynamic range than a dynamic range of the detection system
- e) an increased dynamic range of the instrument being sufficiently large to display image detail in dark, mid-range and bright areas of the image;
- f) the computer being programmed to combine scan lines to preserve relative pixel intensities across the entire image, the instrument being set up to scan the specimen in fluorescence;
- and
- g) acquire sequences of adjacent scan lines in which each scan line has an increased exposure value compared to an exposure value of the immediately previous scan line, the computer programmed to multiply pixel data from a first scan line by a factor and to combine pixel data from the first scan line and a second scan line to produce a single line of pixels in the final image comprised of pixel data from the first scan line multiplied by the factor whenever a pixel intensity value of any pixel in the second scan line is larger than a pre-determined amount and pixel data from the second scan line is used at or below the pre-determined pixel intensity value.
An instrument for scanning at least a part of a large specimen mounted on a specimen holder, the instrument comprising a light source, at least one lens to focus light from the light source, a detection system that comprises at least one detector, a computer programmed and configured to:
- a) take a plurality of measurements of each pixel at a plurality of exposure values;
- b) receive, process and store data received from the at least one detector;
- c) control a power output of the light source;
- d) control the movement of the specimen holder during scanning and a gain of the at least one detector to produce a digitized image of the at least one part of the specimen with a larger dynamic ran e than a dynamic range of the detection system;
- e) have a sequence of three different exposure values to be applied to successive scan lines, the data in a first scan line of the sequence being multiplied by a first factor, the data in a second line of the sequence being multiplied by a second factor and the data in a third line of the sequence being multiplied by a third factor, the factors being chosen to have the data fit an intensity curve of data values.
An instrument for scanning at least a part of a large specimen mounted on a specimen holder, the instrument comprising a light source, at least one lens to focus light from the light source, a detection system that comprises at least one detector, a computer programmed and configured to:
- a) take a plurality of measurements of each pixel at a plurality of exposure values;
- b) receive, process and store data received from the at least one detector;
- c) control a power output of the light source;
- d) control the movement of the specimen holder during scanning and a gain of the at least one detector to produce a digitized image of the at least one part of the specimen with a larger dynamic range than a dynamic range of the detection system, an increased dynamic range of the instrument is sufficiently large to display image detail in dark, mid-range and bright areas of the image, the computer programmed to combine scan lines to preserve relative pixel intensities across the entire image;
- e) contract dynamic range and to serve imaging tiles over a network where contraction of individual tiles is performed on a server before sending the image tiles out over the network and where dynamic range contraction is based on one or more regions of interest or on the entire image file, the instrument being capable of providing the desired dynamic range for viewing the image on a remote computer using the dynamic range of the remote computer display while preserving the dynamic range of the image data in the original file.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.