Patent Document ID: 20180268259
Application ID: 15458967
Patent Status: 0

Claim One:
1. A method of identifying an imaged needle in an ultrasound image, the method comprising: performing edge detection on the ultrasound image to generate an edge-detected data set corresponding to the ultrasound image; performing a straight line detection operation on the edge-detected data set to detect one or more straight lines; based on the one or more straight lines detected in the edge-detected data set, identifying a region of interest (ROI) on the ultrasound image; transforming the ROI of the ultrasound image from a spatial domain to an analysis domain, to generate a transformed ROI; analyzing the transformed ROI to determine whether the transformed ROI, in the analysis domain, corresponds to a needle signature; and if the transformed ROI corresponds to the needle signature, identifying the detected one or more straight lines as the imaged needle.