Patent ID: 7340108

Claim:
A viewing system for enhancing objects of interest represented on a background in a sequence of noisy images and for displaying the sequence of enhanced images, comprising acquisition means for acquiring the sequence of images and processing means for processing the images wherein: extracting means ( 1 ) for extracting punctual features related to an object of interest in an image of the sequence and deriving the location of said object from a location of said punctual features; spatial filtering means ( 2 ) for enhancing ridge features of the object of interest while eliminating the features of the background, wherein the spatial filtering means enhances ridge features specific to the object of interest as a function of (i) a distance from a point located on a candidate ridge with respect to a segment that joins two extracted punctual features and (ii) an angle of the candidate ridge with respect to the segment; and display means ( 54 ) for displaying the processed images of the enhanced object of interest on the filtered background.