Hardware management based on image recognition
View Patent ↗Embodiments of the disclosed technology allow for the control, monitoring, and/or configuration of specialized hardware devices with proprietary interfaces from a central interface capable of interacting with one or a plurality of specialized hardware devices via respective proprietary interfaces. Such embodiments are especially useful in controlling medical equipment, such as radiology equipment at a central and/or remote location, where otherwise, only a proprietary interface at a proximate location could be used to do same.
1. A device exhibiting a common interface interacting with a plurality of proprietary user interfaces, each said proprietary user interface providing interaction with a specialized hardware device, said device comprising:
a camera with means for recording an image of said proprietary user interface;
optical character recognition means for extracting text from said image;
sensing means for extracting locations comprising actionable objects within said image;
exhibiting means exhibiting actionable data resulting from said optical character recognition means and said sensing means in said common user interface.
2. The device of claim 1 , wherein said device propagates a user-configured change to actionable objects in said common user interface to said specialized hardware device via said proprietary user interface.
3. The device of claim 2 , wherein said specialized hardware device comprises biomedical equipment.
4. The device of claim 3 , wherein said biomedical equipment comprises a radiology machine.
5. The device of claim 1 , wherein at least one said proprietary user interface is interactable only at a proximate physical location of said specialized hardware device.
6. The device of claim 5 , wherein said common interface is at a location remote from said proximate physical location of said at least one said proprietary user interface.
7. The device of claim 1 , wherein said sensing means comprise field detection.
8. The device of claim 7 , wherein said sensing means further comprise edge detection by way of color manipulation of said image.
9. The device of claim 8 , wherein said exhibiting means comprise exhibiting said common user interface in a structured data format configured for a human-configured automated process to monitor at least one said specialized hardware device.
10. The device of claim 9 , wherein said human-configured automated process configures an aspect of at least one said specialized hardware device.
11. A method for manipulating a specialized hardware device comprising:
receiving an image of a proprietary user interface of said specialized hardware device;
using optical character recognition to extract text from said image;
extracting locations comprising actionable objects exhibited in said image and connecting said actionable objects with said text; and
creating a common interface based on said text and said actionable objects for manipulating said specialized hardware device.
12. The method of claim 11 , wherein said common user interface comprises a common interface for manipulating a plurality of proprietary user interfaces.
13. The method of claim 12 , wherein said manipulating comprises monitoring.
14. The method of claim 13 , wherein said manipulating further comprises modifying a configurable element of said specialized hardware device.
15. The method of claim 11 , wherein said specialized hardware device comprises biomedical equipment.
16. The method of claim 15 , wherein said biomedical equipment comprises a radiology machine.
17. The method of claim 11 , wherein said proprietary user interface is interactable only at a proximate physical location of said specialized hardware device.
18. The method of claim 17 , wherein said common interface is at a location remote from said proximate physical location of at least one said proprietary user interface.
19. The method of claim 11 , wherein said locations are extracted using edge detection.
20. The method of claim 19 , wherein said locations are extracted by way of varying colors of said image.