High speed digital image capture method for a Digital Image-based Elasto-Tomography breast cancer screeing system

Digital Image-based Elasto-Tomography (DIET) is an emerging technology for non-invasive breast cancer screening. This technology relies on obtaining high resolution images of a breasts surface under high frequency actuation; typically 50-100Hz. Off-the-shelf digital cameras are unable to capture images directly at these speeds and current digital camera set-ups that are potentially capable of high speed image capture are either low in resolution, expensive, or occupy a volume too large to have them placed about the breast in a dense array. A method is presented for obtaining the required high speed image capture at a resolution of 1280x1024 (1.3 mega-pixels) and actuation frequency of 100Hz. The apparatus uses two Kodak CMOS KAC-9648 imaging sensors in combination with frame grabbers and the dSpace control system, to produce an automated image capture system. The final working system produced images that enabled effective 3D motion tracking of the surface of a silicon phantom actuated at 100Hz. The surface of the phantom was strobed at pre-selected phases from 0 to 360 degrees, and an image was captured for each phase. The times at which image capture occurred were calculated for a phase lag increment of 10 degrees resulting in an image effectively every 0.00028s for the actuator cycle of 0.01s. The comparison of the actual trigger times and pre-selected ideal trigger times gave a mean absolute error of 1.4%, thus demonstrating the accuracy of the final system