一种新的血管造影图像增强方法

本文提出了一种新的血管造影图像增强算法.血管造影图像的质量由于种种原因而比较差,因而有必要对其进行增强以便于后续的分割或者中轴提取.为了解决这一问题,本文先对各向异性增强进行了深入分析,然后结合血管造影图像的特点,建立了一种新的对比度模型.并利用此模型,对原始的各向异性扩散方法中的传导参数加以自适应选择,最后利用改进的算法对血管造影图像进行增强.实验结果表明改进的各向异性扩散算法能很好地增强血管造影图像.     

基于局部复杂度信息测度的冠脉造影图像分割

针对冠状动脉造影图像中血管与背景的对比度低以及背景复杂等问题,提出了一种基于局部复杂度信息测度的冠脉血管分割方法.通过对造影图像过渡区特征的分析,构造了局部复杂度信息测度作为特征参数,提取造影图像的过渡区.根据提取的过渡区直方图确定一个最佳分割阈值,提取冠脉血管.实验结果表明,本文方法在小血管的提取、连通性和有效性方面...     

荧光视网膜图像的照度均衡及自适应血管增强算法

提出一种基于图像反射度照度模型的荧光视网膜图像照度校正与均衡算法.首先,使用多尺度处理及形态学测地膨胀运算将原始图像分离为背景图像和前景图像,然后,在背景图像的基础上使用多方向直线均值法对图像的照度成分进行估计,并由反射度照度模型得到背景的均衡图像;最后,单独对前景血管自适应增强的图像进行灰度校正,并将均衡后的背景图像...     

颜色对比度增强的红外与可见光图像融合方法

针对红外与可见光彩色融合图像中目标与背景间的低对比度的问题,提出一种基于HSI空间颜色对比度增强的红外和可见光图像融合方法.首先对输入的可见光与红外图像进行直方图均衡和中值滤波加强处理,然后对加强的红外图像模糊阈值分割得到红外目标,最后把分割的红外目标图像和加强的可见光和红外图像在HSI空间的三通道线性融合和色彩传递,为了增强目标与背景间的颜色对比度,在色彩传递阶段, H通道的色彩传递方程中引入一个比例因子.实验结果表明:与其他算法相比,该方法得到的彩色融合图像热目标和低温物体与背景间的颜色对比度明显加强,同时背景的细节信息呈现白天类似的自然彩色,更加符合人眼视觉感知.     

基于MRF的复杂背景下缓动目标分割方法

提出了一种基于MRF的复杂背景下缓目标分割方法.该方法采用基于逆向光流场的背景抑制技术和基于加权直方图的灰度场建模方法.前者对相邻视频图像进行逆向光流变换使得两帧图像中的目标投影对齐,进而对两帧图像进行差分运算并设定阈值分离目标和背景,得到了较为完整的缓动目标初始分割;后者对初始标号场各像素分配信任度,进而统计信任度并建立加权灰度直方图,而后依据加权直方图建立了准确的图像灰度模型.在此基础上,在MAP-MRF框架内对视频图像进行分割.进行仿真实验并采用空间准确度和时间一致性标准评价实验结果,证明算法具有有效性和鲁棒性.     

一种水下图像增强算法的实现和仿真

〗由于水下环境的特殊性和复杂性,使得水下图像的质量差、图像对比度低。文中给出了一种基于空间域的图像增强方法,该算法利用均值算法估计水下图像背景,从原水下图像衰减背景图像,再对衰减背景之后的图像进行改进的图像锐化处理。通过对算法仿真结果的分析可知,处理后的图像整体对比度明显提升,同时使得目标的边缘更加清晰。     

用于红外弱小点目标图像的超分辨增强技术

提出了一种适用于红外弱小点目标增强的超分辨重建技术.为实现这一目标,首先引入基于图像稠密描述的特征流场,然后将计算得到的高精度流场用于相邻帧配准,通过图像融合和不断迭代得到高分辨重建图像.实验表明,对图像进行超分辨处理后,弱小目标的分辨率可以得到有效增强,局部信噪比可以得到提升,复杂背景可以得到抑制.     

一种用于目标识别的图像融合算法

随着越来越多的装甲车辆装备了红外图像传感设备,使得将可增强战车侦察力的多传感器图像融合技术运用到火控系统的改进中成为一种趋势.针对这一情况,提出了一种基于IHS空间的红外与可见光图像的像素级融合算法.该算法基于IHS空间建立源图像灰度级与色调、饱和度和亮度等与人的感知颜色特征之间的函数关系,通过矩阵转换,得到融合图像的RGB值,可输出显示.实验结果显示:采用该融合算法得到的融合图像目标突出、色彩自然,具有较好的视觉效果,有助于伪装目标的识别.     

基于DSA影像的计算机辅助脑血管图像增强技术研究

蛛网膜下腔出血是一种自发性颅内血管疾病,临床上诊断该类疾病主要依赖于X射线下的血管造影技术。数字减影血管造影技术(Digital Subtraction Angiography,简称DSA)是一种广泛使用的血管可视化技术。但由于受成像设备照射方位的限制,DSA效果只能是二维的。实时三维成像系统(简称3D-DSA)克服了以往造影设备的局限性,采用三维旋转技术重建出逼真的血管轮廓。本文针对3D-DSA影像采集控制系统获取的DICOM图像进行增强去噪的研究,目的是设计出一种适合本系统的去噪增强算法,在三维旋转过程中实现快速分割血管树,为后续的三维重建、可视化导航和介入治疗提供便利条件。     

浅谈图像分割专利技术

图像分割(Image Segmentation)是一种基本的计算机视觉技术,是自动化图像处理的一个重要环节,是图像分析与理解的基础,一直以来都受到关注。图像分割是指在很多情况下人们希望将作为感兴趣"目标"的人或物的图像部分从包括该"目标"人或物的环境图像中分离出来。也称为图像中前景与背景的分离,待分割区域相当于图像中的一部分前景或背景区域,随着图像分割技术的逐步发展,现在已经发展到图像中的各类不同内容均可被同时分离出来。作为一种有效的图像处理手段,图像分割技术已经广泛成熟的应用于各种领域中,如医学造影领域,视频处理领域,遥感探测领域,三维成像领域,并出现众多专利技术。     

基于T-snake模型的冠状动脉血管提取和运动跟踪

提出采用拓扑自适应动态轮廓(T-snake)模型对X射线冠状动脉造影图像序列进行二维血管提取和运动跟踪的方法,得到心动周期中冠状动脉的二维形态和运动信息.设计了适用于心血管造影图像的强约束T-snake模型,约束节点沿网格线从一个网格点运动到下一个网格点,通过节点拆分获得拓扑变换能力.针对图像灰度统计特征,设计了使模型能从血管内部的初始位置膨胀变形的能量函数.采用临床采集的X射线冠状动脉造影图像序列对算法进行了验证.     

Recursive tracking of vascular networks in angiograms based on the detection-deletion scheme

A computer algorithm was developed for automated identification of 2-D vascular networks in X-ray angiograms. This was accomplished by using an adaptive tracking algorithm in a three-stage recursive procedure. First, given a starting position and direction, a segment in the vascular network was identified. Second, by filling it with the surrounding background pixel values, the detected segment was deleted from the angiogram. The detection-deletion scheme was employed to prevent the problem of tracking-path reentry in those areas where vessels overlap. Third, all branch points were detected by use of matched filtering along both edges of the vessel. The detected branch points were used as the starting points in the next recursion. The recursive procedure terminated when no new branch point was found. The algorithm showed a good performance when it was applied to angiograms of coronary and radial arteries. To provide a quantitative evaluation, vascular networks identified by the algorithm were compared to those identified by a human. The algorithm made some false-negative errors, but very few false-positive errors.     

Adaptive approach to accurate analysis of small-diameter vessels incineangiograms

In coronary vessels smaller than 1 mm in diameter, it is difficult to accurately identify lumen borders using existing border detection techniques. Computer-detected diameters of small coronary vessels are often severely overestimated due to the influence of the imaging system point spread function and the use of an edge operator designed for a broad range of diameter vessel sizes. Computer-detected diameters may be corrected if a calibration curve for the X-ray system is available. Unfortunately, the performance of this postprocessing diameter correction approach is severely limited by the presence of image noise. The authors report here a new approach that uses a two-stage adaption of edge operator parameters to optimally match the edge operator to the local lumen diameter. In the first stage, approximate lumen diameters are detected using a single edge operator in a half-resolution image. Depending on the approximate lumen size, one of three edge operators is selected for the second full-resolution stage in which left and right coronary borders are simultaneously identified. The method was tested in a set of 72 segments of nine angiographic phantom vessels with diameters ranging from 0.46 to 4.14 mm and in 82 clinical coronary angiograms. Performance of the adaptive simultaneous border detection method was compared to that of a conventional border detection method and to that of a postprocessing diameter correction border detection method. Adaptive border detection yielded significantly improved accuracy in small phantom vessels and across all vessel sizes in comparison to the conventional and postprocessing diameter correction methods (p<0.001 in all cases). Adaptive simultaneous coronary border detection provides both accurate and robust quantitative analysis of coronary vessels of all sizes     

Anatomy and flow in normal and ischemic microvasculature based on a novel temporal fractal dimension analysis algorithm using contrast enhanced ultrasound

Strategies for improvement of blood flow by promoting new vessel growth in ischemic tissue are being developed. Recently, contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEU) imaging has been used to assess tissue perfusion in models of ischemia-related angiogenesis, growth-factor mediated angiogenesis, and tumor angiogenesis. In these studies, microvascular flow is measured in order to assess the total impact of adaptations at different vascular levels. High-resolution methods for imaging larger vessels have been developed in order to derive "angiograms" of arteries, veins, and medium to large microvessels. We describe a novel method of vascular bed (microvessel and arterial) characterization of vessel anatomy and flow simultaneously, using serial measurement of the fractal dimension (FD) of a temporal sequence of CEU images. This method is proposed as an experimental methodology to distinguish ischemic from nonischemic tissue. Moreover, an improved approach for extracting the FD unique to this application is introduced.     

Segmentation of tomographic data without image reconstruction

Geometric tomography (GT), a technique for processing tomographic projections in order to reconstruct the external and internal boundaries of objects, is presented. GT does not necessitate the reconstruction of an image of the slice of the object. It is shown that the segmentation can be performed directly with the raw data, the sinogram produced with the scanner, and that those segmented shapes can be geometrically transformed into reconstructed shapes in the usual space. If one is interested in only the boundaries of the objects, they do not need to reconstruct an image, and therefore the method needs much less computation than those using traditional computed tomography techniques. Experimental results are presented for both synthesized and real data, leading to subpixel positioning of the reconstructed boundaries. GT gives its best results for sparse, highly contrasted objects such as bones or blood vessels in angiograms, it allows ;on the fly' processing of the data, and real time tracking of the object boundaries.     

A new model-based technique for enhanced small-vessel measurements in X-ray ciné-angiograms

Arterial diameter estimation from X-ray ciné angiograms is important for quantifying coronary artery disease (CAD) and for evaluating therapy. However, diameter measurement in vessel cross sections < or =1.0 mm is associated with large measurement errors. We present a novel diameter estimator which reduces both magnitude and variability of measurement error. We use a parametric nonlinear imaging model for X-ray ciné angiography and estimate unknown model parameters directly from the image data. Our technique allows us to exploit additional diameter information contained within the intensity profile amplitude, a feature which is overlooked by existing methods. This method uses a two-step procedure: the first step estimates the imaging model parameters directly from the angiographic frame and the second step uses these measurements to estimate the diameter of vessels in the same image. In Monte-Carlo simulation over a range of imaging conditions, our approach consistently produced lower estimation error and variability than conventional methods. With actual X-ray images, our estimator is also better than existing methods for the diameters examined (0.4-4.0 mm). These improvements are most significant in the range of narrow vessel widths associated with severe coronary artery disease.     

Robust simultaneous detection of coronary borders in complex images

Visual estimation of coronary obstruction severity from angiograms suffers from poor inter- and intraobserver reproducibility and is often inaccurate. In spite of the widely recognized limitations of visual analysis, automated methods have not found widespread clinical use, in part because they too frequently fail to accurately identify vessel borders. The authors have developed a robust method for simultaneous detection of left and right coronary borders that is suitable for analysis of complex images with poor contrast, nearby or overlapping structures, or branching vessels. The reliability of the simultaneous border detection method and that of the authors' previously reported conventional border detection method were tested in 130 complex images, selected because conventional automated border detection might be expected to fail. Conventional analysis failed to yield acceptable borders in 65/130 or 50% of images. Simultaneous border detection was much more robust (p<.001) and failed in only 15/130 or 12% of complex images. Simultaneous border detection identified stenosis diameters that correlated significantly better with observer-derived stenosis diameters than did diameters obtained with conventional border detection (p<0.001), Simultaneous detection of left and right coronary borders is highly robust and has substantial promise for enhancing the utility of quantitative coronary angiography in the clinical setting.     

Nonrigid 2D/3D registration of coronary artery models with live fluoroscopy for guidance of cardiac interventions

A 2D/3D nonrigid registration method is proposed that brings a 3D centerline model of the coronary arteries into correspondence with bi-plane fluoroscopic angiograms. The registered model is overlaid on top of interventional angiograms to provide surgical assistance during image-guided chronic total occlusion procedures, thereby reducing the uncertainty inherent in 2D interventional images. The proposed methodology is divided into two parts: global structural alignment and local nonrigid registration. In both cases, vessel centerlines are automatically extracted from the 2D fluoroscopic images, and serve as the basis for the alignment and registration algorithms. In the first part, an energy minimization method is used to estimate a global affine transformation that aligns the centerline with the angiograms. The performance of nine general purpose optimizers has been assessed for this problem, and detailed results are presented. In the second part, a fully nonrigid registration method is proposed and used to compensate for any local shape discrepancy. This method is based on a variational framework, and uses a simultaneous matching and reconstruction process to compute a nonrigid registration. With a typical run time of less than 3 s, the algorithms are fast enough for interactive applications. Experiments on five different subjects are presented and show promising results.     

Novel Approach for 3-D Reconstruction of Coronary Arteries From Two Uncalibrated Angiographic Images

Three-dimensional reconstruction of vessels from digital X-ray angiographic images is a powerful technique that compensates for limitations in angiography. It can provide physicians with the ability to accurately inspect the complex arterial network and to quantitatively assess disease induced vascular alterations in three dimensions. In this paper, both the projection principle of single view angiography and mathematical modeling of two view angiographies are studied in detail. The movement of the table, which commonly occurs during clinical practice, complicates the reconstruction process. On the basis of the pinhole camera model and existing optimization methods, an algorithm is developed for 3-D reconstruction of coronary arteries from two uncalibrated monoplane angiographic images. A simple and effective perspective projection model is proposed for the 3-D reconstruction of coronary arteries. A nonlinear optimization method is employed for refinement of the 3-D structure of the vessel skeletons, which takes the influence of table movement into consideration. An accurate model is suggested for the calculation of contour points of the vascular surface, which fully utilizes the information in the two projections. In our experiments with phantom and patient angiograms, the vessel centerlines are reconstructed in 3-D space with a mean positional accuracy of 0.665 mm and with a mean back projection error of 0.259 mm. This shows that the algorithm put forward in this paper is very effective and robust.     

Tubular surface segmentation for extracting anatomical structures from medical imagery

This work provides a model for tubular structures, and devises an algorithm to automatically extract tubular anatomical structures from medical imagery. Our model fits many anatomical structures in medical imagery, in particular, various fiber bundles in the brain (imaged through diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance (DW-MRI)) such as the cingulum bundle, and blood vessel trees in computed tomography angiograms (CTAs). Extraction of the cingulum bundle is of interest because of possible ties to schizophrenia, and extracting blood vessels is helpful in the diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases. The tubular model we propose has advantages over many existing approaches in literature: fewer degrees-of-freedom over a general deformable surface hence energies defined on such tubes are less sensitive to undesirable local minima, and the tube (in 3-D) can be naturally represented by a 4-D curve (a radius function and centerline), which leads to computationally less costly algorithms and has the advantage that the centerline of the tube is obtained without additional effort. Our model also generalizes to tubular trees, and the extraction algorithm that we design automatically detects and evolves branches of the tree. We demonstrate the performance of our algorithm on 20 datasets of DW-MRI data and 32 datasets of CTA, and quantify the results of our algorithm when expert segmentations are available.