A photoacoustic apparatus disclosed herein includes a plurality of receiving elements which receive photoacoustic waves caused by irradiation of light from a light source to a subject and outputs reception signals and a signal data acquisition unit which generates and stores reception signal data by reducing a data amount of reception signals output from the plurality of receiving elements when a region where the directional axes of the plurality of receiving elements are gathered at a point is not included in a region of interest.

Systems and methods for magnetic resonance analysis and imaging are provided. IN particular, pulse sequences for DWI, APT, and MRS analysis and imaging are provided which rely on an RF excitation pulse for the signal of interest, followed by one or more refocusing pulses and acquisition steps, based on the type of imaging.

A photoacoustic apparatus comprises a light source; an acoustic wave receiver receives an acoustic wave and converts into an electric signal; a first acquisition unit acquires a first absorption coefficient distribution inside the object using a first method; a second acquisition unit acquires a second absorption coefficient distribution inside the object using a second method; a third acquisition unit calculates the distribution of functional information on the interior of the object; and an image generation unit generates an image by masking the distribution of the functional information based on the second absorption coefficient distribution, wherein the second method is a method that can implement higher visibility than the first method when the absorption coefficient distribution is imaged.

What is disclosed is a system and method for automatically segmenting a breast from surrounding tissue in a thermal image. A thermal image of at least one breast of the patient is received. The thermal image is then analyzed to identify a set of N points around the breast, a contour of an outline of the body, and isotherms of the axilla and infra-mammary fold. Thereafter, the points are connected together to form a N-sided irregular polygon which segments the breast from surrounding tissue. Each of the points is a vertex of the polygon and comprises a draggable object which enables a user to selectively manipulate a shape of the polygon. A user can add/delete vertices from the polygon as desired. The area of the image encompassed by the polygon is communicated to a breast cancer screening algorithm performing automated or semi-automated screening.

The present invention relates to method and system for automatic control of image quality in imaging of an object using, for example, an ultrasound system. The method comprises transmitting image generating signals into the object using selected system parameter sets of the imaging system. The imaging system has a number of different system parameter sets based on an image ranking measure reflecting a subjective expert opinion of a pre-defined set of images. The captured images are analyzed with respect to at least one image quality feature to determine an image quality metric for each image. The respective image quality metric for each image are analyzed to identify an image associated with a highest image quality metric and the system parameter set used for generating the image associated with the highest image quality metric can be selected as system parameter set for imaging of the object.

A portable sensing system device and method for providing microwave or RF (radio-frequency) sensing functionality for a portable device, the device comprising: a portable device housing configured to be carried by a user; and a sensing unit within said housing configured to characterize an object located in proximity to the portable system, said sensing unit comprising: a wideband electromagnetic transducer array said array comprising a plurality of electromagnetic transducers; a transmitter unit for applying RF signals to said electromagnetic transducer array; and a receiver unit for receiving coupled RF signals from said electromagnetic transducers array.

a photoacoustic apparatus comprises a light source; a plurality of acoustic-wave receiving elements each configured to receive an acoustic wave generated from the object and convert into an electric signal; a supporting body configured to support the plurality of acoustic-wave receiving elements; a moving unit configured to move the supporting body; and an information acquiring unit configured to generate information in the object on the basis of the electric signal, wherein the photoacoustic apparatus performs measuring in first measurement positions and acquires a first electric signal, performs measuring in second measurement positions and acquires a second electric signal, and generates structural information and functional information in the object, and the first measurement positions and the second measurement positions are positions different from each other.

A method is disclosed for generating sinograms by sampling a plurality of transducers acoustically coupled with the surface of a volume of tissue over a period of time after a light pulse at one wavelength, and after another light pulse at a different wavelength, and for processing those sinograms, reconstructing at least two optoacoustic images from the two sinograms, processing the two optoacoustic images to generate two envelope images and generating a parametric map from information in the two envelope images. In an embodiment, motion and tracking are determined to align the envelope images. In an embodiment, at least a second parametric map is produced from information in the same two envelope images. In an embodiment an ultrasound image is also acquired, and the parametric map is coregistered with and overlayed upon the ultrasound image, and then displayed.

In one aspect, an elastography system includes an elastography device and a position sensing device connected to the elastography device. The elastography device includes a housing, a probing element removably attached to the housing, and a force sensor attached within the housing, where the force sensor is connected to the probing element. In another aspect, an elastography) method includes inserting a probing element into a material, producing, by a force sensor connected to a base of the probing element a signal indicative of a force applied to the probing element upon insertion of the probing element into the material, and based on the signal, deriving a mapping of spatial variations of a material property within the material.

A system and a computer implemented method are disclosed to model breast shape using three-dimensional spherical harmonics with adjustable parameters to modulate breast size, projection, and/or ptosis. The method includes receiving a 3D image including a breast, identifying the breast in the 3D image, extracting 3D image data of the breast from the 3D image, forming a closed object using the 3D image data of the breast to create a zero-genus surface, mapping the 3D image data of the breast to a predefined template using spherical coordinates, and determining a 3D spherical harmonic descriptor of the 3D image data of the breast.