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US 9,808,200 B2Granted
Medical imaging apparatus and method
AssigneeHeadwater Partners II LLC
InventorGregory G. Raleigh
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A medical device is used to image a body cavity using a plurality of axially and angularly spaced imaging sensors. Each imaging sensor generates an image that is distinct from one another due to distinct fields of vision. Each image includes an overlapping zone with commonalties that are used to extrapolate a greater calibrated image.
Claims14
A method comprising:
- imaging an interior portion of a balloon having distortable reference markings using a plurality of optical imaging signals that are received and digitized to produce an uncalibrated image in which the distortable reference markings are visible;
- and
- generating a calibrated image from the uncalibrated image by identifying the reference markings in the uncalibrated image and calibrating imaged distortions of the identified reference markings with known physical properties of the reference markings, wherein a correction factor is applied during generation to reduce errors in the calibrated image, wherein the balloon is of a catheter that is inserted into a body cavity.
A system comprising:
- an elongated catheter comprising:
- a balloon coupled to a distal portion of the elongated catheter;
- and
- a plurality of imaging sensors coupled to the catheter within the balloon, where the balloon has a plurality of distortable reference markings visible to one or more of the imaging sensors during an imaging operation of the plurality of imaging sensors;
- and
- an image processing device coupled to receive signals from the imaging sensors of the elongated catheter, the image processing device comprising a processor coupled to memory having instructions executable by the processor to perform a method, where the method comprises:
- imaging an interior portion of the balloon using the plurality of imaging sensors to produce a respective plurality of optical images, at least one of the plurality of optical images imaging at least a subset of the distortable reference markings;
- and
- generating a calibrated image from the plurality of optical images by calibrating imaged distortions of the imaged reference markings with known dimensions of the reference markings.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.