Patent Document ID: 9773306
Application ID: 14197637
Patent Status: 1

Claim One:
1. A method for quantifying caries, executed at least in part on data processing hardware, the method comprising: generating a digital image of a tooth, the image comprising intensity values for a region of pixels corresponding to the tooth, gum, and background; automatically extracting at least one lesion area from sound regions of a tooth by, identifying tooth regions and extracting suspicious lesion areas in the identified tooth regions, selecting a first subset of the extracted suspicious lesion areas, removing false positives in the first subset of the extracted suspicious lesion areas of the tooth by applying an additional false positive detection to the first subset of the extracted suspicious lesion areas to leave a smaller second subset of the first subset, and identifying remaining suspicious lesion areas not in the first subset and suspicious lesion areas in the second subset as the extracted at least one lesion area; identifying an adjacent sound region that is adjacent to the extracted at least one lesion area; reconstructing intensity values for tooth tissue within the extracted at least one lesion area according to values in the adjacent sound region; and quantifying the condition of the caries using the reconstructed intensity values and intensity values from the lesion area.