Patent ID: 7295691

Claim:
A method for computer aided processing of dual or multiple energy images acquired using an X-ray source, the method comprising: employing a data source, the data source including a dual or multiple energy image set including a high energy image, a low energy image, a bone image, and a soft tissue image, each member of the image set being available for processing along with each other member of the image set, each member of the image set being arranged at the data source in such a manner as to allow the computer aided processing to be performed once, as opposed to parallel operations, by incorporating features from all images of the image set; defining a region of interest within an image from the dual or multiple energy image set; employing a feature extraction algorithm and extracting feature measures from the region of interest; employing a feature selection algorithm on the region of interest to sort through features of the region of interest to result in candidate features that define a candidate region of interest, the candidate region of interest being a subset of the region of interest, classifying the candidate region of interest on each image, and subsequently combining results of all of the computer aided processing operations; and reporting at least one of the feature measures on the region of interest.