Patent ID: 8897521

Claim:
An ultrasound image registration apparatus, suitable for registering two ultrasound images partially overlapped with each other, the ultrasound image registration apparatus comprising: a first-stage image-developing processing module, configured for performing beam-forming processing on the ultrasound images so as to generate two raw images; a second-stage image-developing processing module, connected to the first-stage image-developing processing module, configured for performing envelope detection processing and compression processing on the raw images so as to generate two developed ultrasound images; and a registration module, connected to the first-stage image-developing processing module and the second-stage image-developing processing module, configured for respectively obtaining coordinate information of at least one feature point of the raw images as at least one initial value of an image registration procedure, and configured for performing speckles-reducing processing on the developed ultrasound images and using speckles-reduced ultrasound images to perform the image registration procedure, wherein the registration module comprises: a feature extraction unit, connected to the first-stage image-developing processing module, configured for respectively performing feature-extracting processing on the raw images to obtain coordinate information of at least one feature point of the raw images to be at least one initial value of the image registration procedure; and an image registration unit, connected to the feature extraction unit and the second-stage image-developing processing module, configured for performing the speckles-reducing processing on the developed ultrasound images and using the at least one initial value for performing the image registration procedure on the developed ultrasound images, and the image registration unit comprises: a pre-processing unit, performing the speckles-reducing processing respectively on the developed ultrasound images so as to generate a convertible image and an unconvertible image; and a converting unit, connected to the pre-processing unit, configured for performing converting processing on the convertible image and outputting a converted image, wherein the pre-processing unit further performs two-dimensional empirical modal decomposition processing on the developed ultrasound images to generate a residue image and outputs the residue image generated by the two-dimensional empirical modal decomposition processing to the converting unit a metric unit, connected to the pre-processing unit and the converting unit, configured for receiving the unconvertible image and the converted image, determining a metric value between the unconvertible image and the converted image, and outputting the metric value; and an optimization unit, connected to the metric unit and the converting unit, configured for determining at least one parameter of the converting unit according to the metric value.