System and method for smoke detection during anatomical surgery

An apparatus, comprising:

• circuitry configured to:
• capture at least one video frame;
• estimate a partially visible region in a current video frame based on a temporal difference between said current video frame and a previous video frame;
• detect at least one candidate pixel in said estimated partially visible region in said current video frame based on a difference of average intensity of corresponding image blocks of said current video frame and said previous video frame;
• prune at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel;
• and
• determine a smoke region in said partially visible region based on said pruned at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel,
• wherein said at least one false-positive candidate pixel comprise at least one of a first set of pixels in a motion-blurred region in said current video frame or a second set of pixels in a halo-effected region in said current video frame.

A method, comprising:

• capturing at least one video frame of an anatomical region of a user;
• estimating a partially visible region in a current video frame of said anatomical region based on a temporal difference between said current video frame and a previous video frame of said anatomical region;
• detecting at least one candidate pixel in said estimated partially visible region in said current video frame based on a difference of average intensity of corresponding image blocks of said current video frame and said previous video frame;
• determining at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel;
• pruning said at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel;
• and
• determining a smoke region in said partially visible region based on pruning of said detected at least one candidate pixel.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon, computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to execute operations, the operations comprising:

• capturing at least one video frame of an anatomical region of a user;
• estimating a partially visible region in a current video frame of said anatomical region based on a temporal difference between said current video frame and a previous video frame of said anatomical region;
• detecting at least one candidate pixel in said estimated partially visible region in said current video frame based on a difference of average intensity of corresponding image blocks of said current video frame and said previous video frame;
• determining at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel;
• pruning said at least one false-positive candidate pixel from said detected at least one candidate pixel;
• and
• determining a smoke region in said partially visible region based on pruning of said detected at least one candidate pixel.