Image processing to overcome channel capacity limitations in telemicroscopy

Abstract

Telemicroscopy is the central tool to establish a net for telepathology services. To operate such a net in an economical and general available manner the public phone net is selected as communication link. To overcome some of the limitations imposed by the small channel capacity of today's ISDN phone nets with respect to image transmission, an improved handling of the image data stream is mandatory. A flexible, variable and self adapting strategy to compress and reduce image data according to the activity of the operator is described. A further reduction of the data stream is achieved by an autofocus procedure avoiding the transmission of unfocused image data during the focusing process. The remote operator can orient himself in the slide by means of a macro-image with a telecursor to avoid unnecessary image transmission just for orientation. With the help of an intelligent management of the transmitted image data stream an online impression including the movement of the slide under the remote microscope can be provided. To meet legal requirements in medicine tools are provided to record the inspection process for later archiving and documentation in the patient record file.