Jonathan A Ellis

US Patent:

52789543, Jan 11, 1994

Filed:

Sep 11, 1990

Appl. No.:

7/580832

Inventors:

Robert G. Hohlfeld - North Attleboro MA
Jonathan B. Ellis - Arlington MA
Anshu Aggarwal - Boston MA
Thomas W. Drueding - Allston MA

Assignee:

Analogic Corporation - Peabody MA

International Classification:

G06F 1520

US Classification:

395164

Abstract:

An automatic organization of images in computer memory is provided as a doubly-linked (or multiply-linked) list data structure which reflects in its interconnections to relationships between various stages in complex image processing tasks. Data structures, implemented in an appropriate high-level computer language such as C, contain pertinent information about the image as well as pointers (memory addresses) to other data structures and their associated images. These pointers allow the construction and maintenance of the linked list relationships between images. Since the relationships between images in the linked lists are equivalent to the relationships between stages of image processing tasks, the complex tasks of image processing are automatically documented in the linked list data structure without the necessity of maintaining an auxiliary written record. Furthermore, considerable flexibility in developing novel image processing tasks is obtained as well as advantages in managing the memory requirements in image processing and avoiding redundant computation of quantities already stored in the image data structure.