Methods, devices, and systems are provided for quantifying an extent of various pathology patterns in scanned subject images. The detection and quantification of pathology is performed automatically and unsupervised via a trained system. The methods, devices, and systems described herein generate unique dictionaries of elements based on actual image data scans to automatically identify pathology of new image data scans of subjects. The automatic detection and quantification system can detect a number of pathologies including a usual interstitial pneumonia pattern on computed tomography images, which is subject to high inter-observer variation, in the diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.