Method of volumetric imaging of a sample

Inventors

Kennedy, Brendan • Krajancich, Brooke • Fang, Qi • Curatolo, Andrea

Assignees

Oncores Medical Pty Ltd

Abstract

The present disclosure provides a method of volumetric imaging of a sample. The method comprises providing a plurality of depth images of a region of interest of the sample using a volumetric imaging system. The region of interest is below a surface area of interest of the sample. Each depth image is associated with a layer or slice of the region of interest and the plurality of depth images together forming a volumetric image of the region of interest. The method further comprises providing a surface image of the surface area of interest of the sample and identifying a surface image property of a surface feature of the surface area of interest. The method also comprises processing the plurality of depth images of the region of interest using the surface image property of the surface feature to improve a property of the depth images of the region of interest.

Core Innovation

The invention relates to volumetric imaging of biological tissue using a plurality of depth images of a region of interest below a surface area of interest. A surface image of the surface area of the biological tissue is provided as a separate input to the volumetric imaging, and each depth image is associated with a layer or slice of the region of interest to form a volumetric image of the region of interest.

The method identifies a visible property of a surface portion using the surface image, and identifies a portion of at least some depth images that belongs to the same portion of the biological tissue having a tissue property different from surrounding tissue. The identified portion of at least some of the depth images is associated with the visible property of the surface portion, and each depth image is processed using the visible property to improve depth-image contrast by correlating surface features or volume types with corresponding portions of depth images.

The invention further uses sequences of surface images during movement to identify changes in spatial position of surface features. Positional information is used to control or correct an impact of movement between the volumetric imaging system and the sample, including remapping or mechanical correction of relative motion.

In additional embodiments, a layer having known mechanical properties and incorporating a fiducial marker is positioned on the surface area of interest, a load is applied, deformation is detected, and the fiducial marker is used for correcting motion artefacts, including deformation detection at layer interfaces using OCT.

Claims Coverage

The document contains two independent claims (clm-00001 and clm-00012). Across these claims, four main inventive areas are explicitly covered: associating depth images with a visible surface property, selecting depth-image portions corresponding to a tissue property difference, correcting movement artefacts using positional information from surface-feature changes, and using a fiducial-marker layer with known mechanical properties to detect deformation and correct motion artefacts.

The independent claims jointly cover volumetric imaging that correlates depth-image portions with a visible property of the surface, and volumetric imaging performed during relative motion that is corrected using positional information from surface features. A further refinement is the use of a fiducial-marker layer with known mechanical properties, where load-induced deformation is detected and the fiducial marker is used to correct motion artefacts.

Stated Advantages

Documented Applications