Patent ID: 7050619

Claim:
A method of automatic detection of a graduated compression paddle used for breast analysis in digital mammography, the method comprising: acquiring a base digital image containing the paddle and at least a portion of the breast, the base image being subdivided into rows of N elementary pixels respectively assigned luminous intensity values, the rows of elementary pixels all being parallel to a general direction of graduation of the paddle; determining N autocorrelations of the vector of luminous intensity values associated with the row of elementary pixels are made for each row, with respectively the vector and the N−1 vectors successively shifted by 1 elementary pixel, so as to obtain for each row a vector of N autocorrelation values; carrying out a Fourier transform treatment on each autocorrelation vector, in order to obtain an energy frequency spectrum; comparing the energy value at the frequency of the graduated marks for each spectrum with a predetermined threshold value; detecting the paddle; and unambiguously distinguishing a densest area of the breast from an area of the paddle containing the graduated marks, thereby enabling automatic exposure adjustment based on a most glandular area of the breast; wherein the acquisition of the image is carried out in an automatic mode, in which an adjustment of the exposure parameters is determined from table of automatic optimization of parameters (AOP).