Patent ID: 8483488

Claim:
A method of generating a stabilized image, comprising: receiving an input of reflected ultrasonic signals from a tubular environment, wherein said reflected ultrasonic signals contain information about reflective surfaces of said tubular environment, and converting said input into a series of images; generating a raw circumferential image depicting a cross-section of said tubular environment from each of said images in said series; filtering said series of images to increase signal to noise and obtain a series of refined circumferential images depicting said cross-sections of said tubular environment; detecting the edges of each of said refined images using a predictive model, wherein said predictive model includes setting a probability threshold for classifying a pixel as “lumen” or “non-lumen” and calculating the probability that a pixel is “lumen-based” or “non-lumen-based”; constructing a binary image of each of said refined images from said detected edges, wherein each binary image corresponds to one of said circumferential raw images, and calculating a centroid of said binary image; and aligning the geometric center of each said raw image frame with its corresponding centroid, to form the stabilized image.