Patent ID: 8072466

Claim:
A medical examination apparatus for acquiring slice images of a subject, comprising: an image acquisition unit adapted to interact with a subject to acquire image data, representing an image of a slice, from the subject in an image acquisition procedure, said image of said slice representing a diagnostic tool for a medical diagnosis, and said medical diagnosis imposing conditions that dictate contents of said image acquisition procedure; a control device connected to said image acquisition device that controls said image acquisition procedure, said control device comprising a display on which a plurality of graphic elements, representing selectable parameters that influence said image acquisition procedure, are displayed, and an input unit allowing a user to select one of said plurality of graphic elements as a primary graphic element and to selectively position said primary graphic element at said display; said control device being configured to allow a coupling input to be made via said input unit that causes at least some of the displayed graphic elements, other than said primary graphic element to be coupled to said primary graphic element and to each other in terms of position on said display; a position change on said display of the primary graphic element is made through said input unit, to cause all of said graphic elements coupled with said primary graphic element to be mutually moved on said display together with said primary graphic element while retaining a positional relationship on said display among all of the coupled elements, and said input unit allowing a subsequent decoupling input to be made that cancels the coupling caused by said coupling input, to thereafter allow decoupled graphic elements to be separately modified on said display by modifying inputs made through said input unit; said control device being configured to limit inputs made via said input unit, to restrict graphic elements among said plurality of graphic elements that are permitted to be selected as said primary graphic element, dependent on said contents of said image acquisition procedure that are dictated by said medical diagnosis; and said control device being configured to generate control signals that operate said image acquisition unit corresponding to said positional relationship on said display among all of the coupled elements.