Patent ID: 8162543

Claim:
A method for correcting imaging errors in an x-ray intensifier system comprising an image converter tube that converts incoming x-ray radiation into visible light, and a digital camera system that is optically downstream of said image converter tube, said digital camera system comprising an image sensor that converts said visible light into a digital image, and comprising an electronic image processor that processes said digital image, said method comprising the steps of: mounting a magnetic field probe at a fixed location on or in said x-ray converter tube; with said magnetic field probe, separately detecting a characteristic of each component of a multi-component magnetic field that is present in an environment in which said image converter tube is located, the components of said multi-component magnetic field respectively causing deformations in orthogonal directions in said digital image, and emitting probe output signals from said magnetic field probe that respectively represent the separately detected characteristic of the respective components; supplying said probe output signals to an imaging error processor and, in said imaging error processor, analyzing said characteristics and automatically quantifying an imaging error in each said orthogonal directions resulting from said magnetic field; in said imaging error processor, automatically determining at least one parameter of a correction map, dependent on the quantified imaging error in each said orthogonal directions, that corrects the quantified imaging error in each said orthogonal directions; and supplying said correction map to said image processor and, in said image processor, correcting said digital image in each said orthogonal directions using said correction map.