Patent ID: 6084407
Filing Date: 2000-07-04
Classification: A01K,A22B,A61B

Abstract:
A system for measuring intramuscular fat within an animal, the system comprising:a computer system;a magnetic resonance imaging scanner connected to the computer system, and located adjacent an area of tissue of an animal to be scanned, wherein scan wave line pixel data, produced by the scanner, is transferred to the computer system;scan evaluation software located within the computer system for evaluating the wave line pixel data produced by the scanner to calculate and display a percentage of intramuscular fat within the tissue scanned by the scanner;termination software within the scan evaluation software to locate first and second termination pixels, one at each boundary between muscle tissue and the surrounding tissue within each wave line;intramuscular fat determination software, within the scan evaluation software, to calculate the percentage of intramuscular fat between the first and second termination pixels of each wave line located by the termination software; andaveraging software within the scan evaluation software to average the percentage of fat found by the intramuscular fat determination software for each wave line.