Real-time window/leveling on a radiographic workstation

Claim 1

Digital image processing apparatus 202 comprising: a memory (302) for storing digital medical images and image processing look-up tables, including a window/level look-up table (lut) having selectively variable parameters and a gamma lut; an image display (300) having an image display area and a non-image display area; a hardware color lut memory coupled between the memory (302) and the image display (300); a digital control (304) for controlling the memory (302), the image display (300), and the hardware color lut memory (312); and a user input device (306), (308) for inputting commands to the digital control; wherein, in a first mode, a user inputs a command through the user input device (306), (308) to display a medical image from the memory (302) on the image display (300), the digital control (304) cascades the window/level lut and the gamma lut into an image display lut; stores the image display lut in the hardware color lut memory (312), while reserving color cells used in the non-image area of the image display (300); and displays the medical image from the memory (302) in the image area of the image display (300) after the image is passed through the hardware color lut memory (312); and wherein in a second mode, a user inputs a command through the user input device (306), (308) to selectively change the parameters of the window/level lut, the digital control (304) changes the window/level lut as a function of the changed parameters, cascades the changed window/level lut with the gamma lut into a changed image display lut; stores the changed image display lut the hardware color lut memory (312); and redisplays the medical image in the image display area of the image display (300), with the changed window/level parameters, without changing the displayed values of the non-image display area.