Patent ID: 7450762
Filing Date: 2008-11-11
Classification: G06K,G06T

Abstract:
1. A method of determining, using an active contour model, a sought object contour in a digital microscope image, which includes a plurality of image elements and reproduces a biological material, the method comprising: assigning edge values to at least a first subset of the image elements in the image; assigning values of a first gradient vector component whose values each comprise a first linear combination of edge values of some surrounding image elements to at least a second subset of the image elements in the image, wherein the first linear combination corresponds to, in arbitrary order, a differentiation in one direction in the image plane and a filtering in the image plane with the inverse of a 3 by 3 filter, the filter corresponding to a filtering with a weighted combination of a Laplace filter and a unity filter; assigning values of a second-gradient-vector component whose values each comprise a second linear combination of edge values of some surrounding image elements to at least a third subset of the image elements in the image, wherein the second linear combination corresponds to, in arbitrary order, a differentiation in another direction in the image plane and a filtering in the image plane with the inverse of a 3 by 3 filter, the filter corresponding to a filtering with a weighted combination of a Laplace filter and a unity filter; and calculating an estimate of the sought object contour based upon values of the first and the second gradient vector components.