Patent ID: 7031503

Claim:
A method for automatically producing a temporally processed image, the method comprising: preparing a storage unit, the storage unit storing thereon a plurality of radiographic images, the plurality of radiographic images being taken at different points of time; capturing a new radiographic image; automatically producing, in response to said capturing, a specified number of temporally processed images according to a predetermined number of pairs of the radiographic images, wherein the pairs of the radiographic images include the captured radiographic image, and wherein the predetermined number of pairs of the radiographic images are previously specified; attaching a first ID to each radiographic image in the storage unit as a first attribute information, wherein the first ID uniquely identifies each radiographic image stored in the storage unit; attaching a second ID to each existing temporally processed image stored in the storage unit as a second attribute information, wherein the second ID uniquely identifies each temporally processed image stored in the storage unit, and wherein the second ID comprises a pair of the first IDs corresponding to a respective pair of the radiographic images stored in the storage unit; defining a third ID for each temporally processed image which is intended to be produced according to the predetermined number of pairs of the radiographic images stored in the storage unit, wherein the third ID comprises a pair of the first IDs corresponding to a respective pair of the radiographic images stored in the storage unit; and preventing overlapped production of a same temporally processed image stored in the storage unit by not producing a temporally processed image when the pair of the first IDs of the third ID of the temporally processed image which is intended to be produced overlaps the pair of the first IDs of one of the second IDs of the existing temporally processed images stored in the storage unit.