Semi-Automatic Detection and Measurement of Fetal Parameters from Ultrasound Images and the Scope Automatic System Using LabVIEW

Abstract

The idea of developing an automated fetal parameter detection and measurement system using image processing techniques available in LabVIEW is proposed in this research work. The six fetal parameters to be measured from the ultrasound images are crown rump length, biparietal diameter, femur length, head circumference, abdominal circumference and humerus length. We propose the semi-automatic and automatic process using the vision assistant tool in LabVIEW. The semi-automatic process is wherein the parameters are segregated in to six SUB VI’s and are programmed into one single MAIN VI. This is then followed by manually dragging the region of interest ROI which could be either circle or line annotation and the values of the result is obtained. The automatic process is being performed only for four parameters namely AC, HC, HL and FL. The trimester fetal scan image is loaded and by applying certain threshold levels and performing convolution as well as morphological operations using different icons such as contour extract, the search direction and the contour selection are used to locate the images from left to right, top to bottom, maximum length, etc., for automation. Here, it selects the appropriate ROI and the values of the result are obtained. The main advantage of this work is that all the conventional methods of fetal anatomical parameter detections are improved with customized LabVIEW and the vision assistant tool. The conventional procedure consumes 20–30 min for a single subject scanning whereas in case of these proposed techniques the time taken for automatic detection is less than 5 min based on the system used and the manual intervention also be reduced in diagnostic procedures.