Patent Publication Number: US-2018046760-A1

Title: Data management device and image display system

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     The present invention claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119 to Japanese Patent Application No. 2016-157131 filed on Aug. 10, 2016, including description, claims, drawings, and abstract the entire disclosure are incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Technological Field 
     The present invention relates to a data management device and an image display system. 
     Description of the Related art 
     In medical facilities such as hospitals, servers manage medical image data picked up by modalities (image pick-up apparatuses) such as computed radiography (CR), computed tomography (CT), magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), etc., and medical images based on the medical image data are displayed by image display devices in accordance with needs. 
     When medical images are to be displayed, a large amount of data has to be processed, and many techniques have been proposed to increase the processing speed thereof. For example, JP 4861647 B2 discloses a technique of dividing and processing image data by a plurality of image processing units in a computer device connected to a modality and displaying the image by a monitor or the like of a work station. 
     Meanwhile, in recent years, in order to enable viewing of medical images by doctors, etc. even in a place without a dedicated apparatus capable of displaying medical images, there is a demand to display medical images via a web browser installed in a terminal device such as a general personal computer (PC) or a smartphone. 
     However, when a medical image is to be displayed, a processing request corresponding to one image is divided and given from the terminal device to the data management device. However, due to restrictions of the web browser, there is a limit to the number of requests that can be requested simultaneously, and the data management device cannot perform efficient division processing. 
     For this reason, when such a terminal device is used, it takes time until the image is displayed after a user issues an instruction to display the medical image from the terminal device. 
     SUMMARY 
     It is an object of the present invention to provide a data management device and an image display system. 
     To achieve the abovementioned object, according to an aspect of the present invention, a data management device communicably connected to a terminal device that displays an image on a web browser, reflecting one aspect of the present invention comprises: a hardware processor that: separates a domain to which the terminal device is connected into a plurality of subdomains; when receiving an execution request of image processing corresponding to the number divisions of image data from the terminal device, divides the image data into the number of divisions and performs image processing in a plurality of regions specified by the domain; and a transmitter that transmits the processed image data undergone the image processing by the hardware processor. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING 
       The advantages and features provided by one or more embodiments of the invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow and the appended drawings which are given by way of illustration only, and thus are not intended as a definition of the limits of the present invention: 
         FIG. 1  is a schematic configuration diagram of an image display system of an embodiment; 
         FIG. 2  is a block diagram showing a functional configuration example of a data management device; 
         FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of a terminal device; 
         FIG. 4  is a ladder chart showing image display processing according to the embodiment; and 
         FIG. 5  is a diagram for describing the image display processing of  FIG. 4 . 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS 
     Hereinafter, one or more embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. However, the scope of the invention is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. 
     [Configuration of Image Display System] 
     First, a configuration of an image display system  100  according to the embodiment will be described. 
       FIG. 1  is a schematic configuration diagram of the image display system  100  according to the embodiment. 
     As shown in  FIG. 1 , the image display system  100  includes: a data management device  10  and terminal devices  20  usable by, for example, users such as doctors, nurses, and visiting care workers belonging to facilities such as hospitals, clinics, and visiting nursing care offices. The data management device  10  and the terminal device  20  are connectable via a communication network N. 
     The data management device  10  accumulates and manages image data (hereinafter, simply referred to as “image data”) of medical images generated by a modality(ies) not shown, generates medical images in a format read by a web browser based on requests from the terminal device  20 , and provides the medical images to the terminal device  20 . 
     The data management device  10  may be a cloud server provided in a cloud environment. 
     The terminal device  20  is an information processing terminal capable of executing a web browser and displays medical image by using the web browser. 
     The terminal device  20  is, for example, a personal computer (PC), a tablet terminal, a smartphone, or the like used in each facility or the home of a patient who is under treatment at home. 
     [Configuration of Data Management Device] 
       FIG. 2  is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of the data management device  10 . 
     As shown in  FIG. 2 , the data management device  10  includes: a control unit  11  as a domain separator, a division-number presenter, and an image processor; an operation unit  12 ; a display unit  13 ; a communication unit  14  as a transmitter; a RAM  15 ; a storage unit  16 ; etc., and each unit is connected by a bus  17 . 
     The control unit  11  includes, for example, a central processing unit (CPU) and totally controls processing operations of each unit of the data management device  10 . Specifically, the CPU reads various processing programs stored in the storage unit  16  in accordance with operation signals input from the operation unit  12  or instruction signals received by the communication unit  14 , expands the programs in the RAM  15 , and performs various processing in cooperation with the programs. 
     The operation unit  12  includes a keyboard having a cursor key, character input keys, various function keys, etc. and a pointing device such as a mouse, and the operation signals input by a key operation on the keyboard or a mouse operation are output to the control unit  11 . Furthermore, the operation unit  12  may be constituted by a touch panel stacked on the display unit  13  so that an operation signal corresponding to the position of a touch operation by the operator&#39;s finger or the like is output to the control unit  11 . 
     The display unit  13  includes a monitor such as a liquid crystal display (LCD) and displays various screens according to instructions of display signals input from the control unit  11 . 
     The communication unit  14  includes, for example, a network interface and exchanges data with an external device connected via a communication network N such as local area network (LAN), wide area network (WAN), or the Internet. 
     The RAM  15  forms a work area for temporarily storing various programs, input or output data, parameters, etc. read from the storage unit  16  in various processing executed and controlled by the control unit  11 . 
     The storage unit  16  includes, for example, a hard disk drive (HDD) or a semiconductor nonvolatile memory and stores various processing programs and parameters and files, which are necessary for executing the programs, etc. For example, the storage unit  16  stores, for example, a web server program, which is for realizing a function as a web server that communicates with a web browser installed in the terminal device  20  by using a HTTP protocol, and stores an application program that operates on the web server and provides medical images to the user of the terminal device  20  via the web browser. 
     Furthermore, the storage unit  16  has an image data region  161 . The image data region  161  is a database generated by a modality not shown and used for managing image data transmitted from the modality. For example, predetermined accompanying information such as a patient name, an inspection type, date, etc. are attached to the image data so that each image data can be identified. 
     [Configuration of Terminal Device] 
       FIG. 3  is a block diagram showing an example of a functional configuration of the terminal device  20 . 
     As shown in  FIG. 3 , the terminal device  20  includes: a control unit  21 , an operation unit  22 , a display unit  23  as a display, a communication unit  24  as a communicator, a RAM  25 , a storage unit  26 , etc., and each unit is connected by a bus  27 . 
     The control unit  21  includes, for example, a CPU and totally controls the processing operations of each unit of the terminal device  20 . Specifically, the CPU reads various processing programs stored in the storage unit  26  in accordance with operation signals input from the operation unit  22  or instruction signals received by the communication unit  24 , expands the programs in the RAM  25 , and performs various processing in cooperation with the programs. 
     The operation unit  22  includes a keyboard having a cursor key, character input keys, various function keys, etc. and a pointing device such as a mouse, and the operation signals input by a key operation on the keyboard or a mouse operation are output to the control unit  21 . Furthermore, the operation unit  22  may be constituted by a touch panel stacked on the display unit  23  so that an operation signal corresponding to the position of a touch operation by the operator&#39;s finger or the like is output to the control unit  21 . 
     The display unit  23  includes a monitor such as an LCD and displays various screens according to instructions of display signals input from the control unit  21 . For example, the display unit  23  displays various web screens based on display data of various web screens received from the data management device  10 . 
     The communication unit  24  includes, for example, a network interface and transmits/receives data to/from an external device connected via the communication network N such as LAN, WAN, or the Internet. In addition, the communication unit  24  may perform wireless communication by using a mobile phone line or the like and transmit/receive data to/from an external device connected via the communication network N. 
     The RAM  25  forms a work area for temporarily storing various programs, input or output data, parameters, etc. read from the storage unit  26  in various processing executed and controlled by the control unit  21 . 
     The storage unit  26  includes, for example, a HDD or a semiconductor nonvolatile memory and stores various processing programs and parameters and files, which are necessary for executing the programs, etc. For example, a web browser program or the like for realizing a web browser is stored in the storage unit  26 . 
     [Operation in Image Display System] 
     Next, operations of the image display system  100  will be described. 
       FIG. 4  is a ladder chart showing image display processing executed when a medical image is displayed by the terminal device  20  in the image display system  100 . 
     The processing in the data management device  10  is realized by software processing in cooperation with the control unit  11  and the programs stored in the storage unit  16 , and the processing in the terminal device  20  is realized by software processing in cooperation with the control unit  21  and the programs stored in the storage unit  26 . 
     First, when a user inputs an instruction to display a predetermined medical image by the display unit  23  via the operation unit  22 , the control unit  21  of the terminal device  20  transmits a transmission request of image data of a predetermined medical image to the data management device  10  (step S 1 ). 
     Specifically, a list screen displaying a list of, for example, patient names and/or inspection types is displayed by the display unit  23 , and the user specifies a desired patient name and/or inspection type so that, for example, the control unit  21  can transmit a transmission request of image data of a case in which a predetermined medical image is displayed. In this case, by specifying the patient name and/or the inspection type, the image data stored in the image data region  161  is specified in the data management device  10 . 
     Alternatively, the control unit  21  may transmit a transmission request of image data by displaying, for example, a thumbnail screen of a medical image by the display unit  23  and specifying one image on the thumbnail screen by the user. 
     Then, when the transmission request of the image data from the terminal device  20  is received, in response to this, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  transmits image dividing conditions and subdomains to the terminal device  20  (step S 2 ). 
     Herein, in the embodiment, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  divides the image data into a plurality of parts, performs image processing for each part, and executes processing of transmitting the divided image data, which has undergone the image processing, to the terminal device  20 . 
     The image dividing conditions are the conditions indicating the number of divisions (the number of divisions) of the image data and the position (coordinate value) at which the image data is divided prior to the execution of such image processing for each part. 
     The image dividing conditions are determined by, for example, the size of an image display region of the terminal device  20  specified by the transmission request of the image data from the terminal device  20  and an image condition(s) of the image data specified by the transmission request. The image condition(s) includes at least one of the size and resolution of the image data. It should be noted that the image dividing conditions may be determined depending on the type of image processing to be performed on the image data. 
     For example, a breast image captured by a mammography apparatus is generally three times higher in resolution than a chest radiographic image, and, in the case of such a high-resolution breast image, the number of divisions is larger than that of a chest radiographic image. 
     Specifically, for example, in a case of displaying a chest radiographic image by a smartphone having a specified size, if the image data is to be divided into three at equal intervals vertically and horizontally and to be divided into nine sections as a whole to display mammographic breast images by the same smartphone, the image data is divided into three at equal intervals vertically, divided into four at equal intervals laterally, and divided into  12  as a whole. 
     In this manner, the control unit  11  determines the number of divisions of the image and the coordinate value of each divided part as the image dividing conditions. 
     Then, the control unit  11  transmits the image dividing conditions determined in the above described manner and the subdomains separated from the domain to which the terminal device  20  is connected to the terminal device  20 . 
     Then, when the image dividing conditions and the subdomains are received from the data management device  10 , the control unit  21  of the terminal device  20  transmits an execution request of the image processing with the image dividing conditions to the subdomain destinations (step S 3 ). 
     Then, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  extracts image data from the image data region  161  and executes image processing (step S 4 ). 
     Herein, the control unit  11  performs predetermined image processing (for example, interpretation image creation processing, analysis processing, etc.) on the image data and converts the image data undergone the image processing into the image data in a format read by the web browser. 
     In this process, the control unit  11  executes the image processing by dividing the image data extracted from the image data region  161  into the specified number at the coordinate value specified by the image dividing conditions and allocating parts thereof respectively to a plurality of regions specified by the domain and subdomains. 
     More specifically, the data management device  10  has the plurality of regions respectively corresponding to the domain and the subdomains, and the control unit  11  allocates the divided parts respectively to the plurality of regions and executes the image processing. 
     For example, the image data shown in  FIG. 5  is divided into  9  parts (a) to (i), and the image parts of (a) to (c) are processed in the region to which a position in a network represented by a character string “http://www.km.co.jp/” of the uniform resource locator (URL) is allocated. 
     Furthermore, the image parts of (d) to (f) are processed in the region to which a position (address) in the network indicated by a character string “http://www.km.co.jp/s1” of the URL is allocated. 
     Moreover, the image parts of (g) to (i) are processed in the region to which a position (address) in the network indicated by a character string “http://www.km.co.jp/s2” of the URL is allocated. 
     It should be noted that the subdomains may be stored in the storage unit  16  in advance or may be appropriately generated. For example, if a plurality of subdomains are stored in the storage unit  16  in advance and there is a transmission request for image data by the user, the control unit  11  may read the subdomain(s) from the storage unit  16  and transmit the subdomain(s) together with the image dividing conditions. Also, if there is a transmission request for image data by the user, the control unit  11  may generate a new subdomain. 
     Also, the subdomain may be subjected to notification from the data management device  10  to the terminal device  20  at the timing at which the terminal device  20  and the data management device  10  are connected instead of the timing at which the data management device  10  responds to the transmission request of the image data from the terminal device  20 . 
     In this manner, by dividing the image data and processing the parts of the divided image data in different regions, processing of the plurality of parts of the image data can be performed at the same time. As a result, the processing speed taken until the image is transmitted to and displayed by the terminal device  20  can be increased. 
     Then, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  transmits the image data of the divided parts, which have undergone the image processing, to the terminal device  20  (step S 5 ), the control unit  21  of the terminal device  20  receives the image data and displays the image data by the display unit  23  (step S 6 ), and the present processing is terminated. 
     As described above, according to the embodiment, in the data management device  10  communicably connected to the terminal device  20  which displays images by the web browser, when the control unit  11  separates a domain to which the terminal device  20  is connected into a plurality of subdomains and receives an execution request of image processing corresponding to the number of divisions of the image data from the terminal device  20 , the control unit  11  divides the image data into the number of divisions, performs the image processing in the plurality of regions specified by the domain and the plurality of subdomains, and transmits the processed divided image data, which has undergone the image processing, to the terminal device  20 . 
     Therefore, by using the subdomains, the number of requests that can be simultaneously requested from the terminal device  20  to the data management device  10  can be increased, and image processing can be simultaneously performed by dividing one piece of image data into a plurality of pieces. Therefore, the processing speed is increased as a whole, and the time taken until the image(s) is displayed by the terminal device  20  can be shortened. 
     Furthermore, according to the embodiment, when the transmission request of image data from the terminal device  20  is received, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  presents the number of divisions of the image data to the terminal device  20 . When the execution request of image processing is received from the terminal device  20  as a result of presenting the number of divisions, the image data is divided into the number of divisions. 
     Therefore, in response to the transmission request of the image data from the terminal device  20 , the number of divisions of the image data is presented to the terminal device  20 . 
     Furthermore, according to the embodiment, the control unit  11  of the data management device  10  presents the number of divisions in accordance with the size of the image display region of the terminal device  20  specified by the transmission request of the image data and the image condition of the image data, and the image condition includes at least one of the size and the resolution of the image data. 
     Therefore, since the image data can be divided into an appropriate number according to the size of the image display region of the terminal device  20  and the image condition of the image data, the image processing can be executed more quickly. 
     According to the embodiment, the image data is medical image data. 
     Therefore, it is possible to speed up the processing of the medical image data having a large capacity and to promptly display the medical image by the terminal device  20 . 
     It should be noted that the image data in the above embodiment may include not only still image data but also moving image data. 
     If the image data is moving image data, the moving image data can be divided into a predetermined number depending on the length thereof, and the number of divisions of the image, the frame number of each divided part, etc. can be determined as the image dividing conditions. 
     Therefore, even if the image data is moving image data, image processing can be performed quickly. 
     Although embodiments of the present invention have been described and illustrated in detail, it is clearly understood that the same is by way of illustration and example only and not limitation, the scope of the present invention should be interpreted by terms of the appended claims.