Poisson noise reduction from X-ray images by region classification and response median filtering

Medical imaging is perturbed with inherent noise such as speckle noise in ultrasound, Poisson noise in X-ray and Rician noise in MRI imaging. This paper focuses on X-ray image denoising problem. X-ray image quality could be improved by increasing dose value; however, this may result in cell death or similar kinds of issues. Therefore, image processing techniques are developed to minimise noise instead of increasing dose value for patient safety. In this paper, usage of modified Harris corner point detector to predict noisy pixels and responsive median filtering in spatial domain is proposed. Experimentation proved that the proposed work performs better than simple median filter and moving average (MA) filter. The results are very close to non-local means Poisson noise filter which is one of the current state-of-the-art methods. Benefits of the proposed work are simple noise prediction mechanism, good visual quality and less execution time.     

Wavelet‐based denoising and its impact on analytical SPECT reconstruction with nonuniform attenuation compensation

In single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), the nonstationary Poisson noise in projection data (sinogram) is a major cause of compromising the quality of reconstructed images. To improve the quality, we must suppress the Poisson noise in the sinogram before or during image reconstruction. However, the conventional space or frequency domain denoising methods will likely remove some information that is very important for accurate image reconstruction, especially for analytical SPECT reconstruction with compensation for nonuniform attenuation. As a time‐frequency analysis tool, wavelet transform has been widely used in the signal and image processing fields and demonstrated its powerful functions in the application of denoising. In this article, we studied the denoising abilities of wavelet‐based denoising method and the impact of the denoising on analytical SPECT reconstruction with nonuniform attenuation. Six popular wavelet‐based denoising methods were tested. The reconstruction results showed that the Revised BivaShrink method with complex wavelet is better than others in analytical SPECT reconstruction with nonuniform attenuation compensation. Meanwhile, we found that the effect of the Anscombe transform for denoising is not significant on the wavelet‐based denoising methods, and the wavelet‐based de‐noise methods can obtain good denoising result even if we do not use Anscombe transform. The wavelet‐based denoising methods are the good choice for analytical SPECT reconstruction with compensation for nonuniform attenuation. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 23, 36–43, 2013     

Image deblurring using empirical Wiener filter in the curvelet domain and joint non-local means filter in the spatial domain

In this paper, an efficient image deblurring algorithm is proposed. This algorithm restores the blurred image by incorporating a curvelet-based empirical Wiener filter with a spatial-based joint non-local means filter. Curvelets provide a multidirectional and multiscale decomposition that has been mathematically shown to represent distributed discontinuities such as edges better than traditional wavelets. Our method restores the image in the frequency domain to obtain a noisy result with minimal loss of image components, followed by an empirical Wiener filter in the curvelet domain to attenuate the leaked noise. Although the curvelet-based methods are efficient in edge-preserving image denoising, they are prone to producing edge ringing which relates to the structure of the underlying curvelet. In order to reduce the ringing, we develop an efficient joint non-local means filter by using the curvelet deblurring result. This filter could suppress the leaked noise while preserving image details. We compare our deblurring algorithm with a few competitive deblurring techniques in terms of improvement in signal-to-noise-ratio (ISNR) and visual quality.     

Fuzzy singular value shrinkage for Poisson image denoising

Poisson noise is a fundamental problem in various imaging applications, such as low-light photography, computed tomography and fluorescence microscopy. To remove Poisson noise, an adaptive iterative singular value shrinkage algorithm based on variance-stabilizing transformation (VST) and fuzzy logic classification is proposed in this paper. Since Poisson noise is signal dependent, we use the VST to convert it into signal independent Gaussian noise. The transformed image is divided into a number of blocks, and the similarity of these blocks is well judged according to the similarity criterion of an approximate Kullback–Leibler (KL) distance, and they are arranged to form a low-rank matrix. Then, the proposed algorithm uses singular value decomposition and adaptive soft-thresholding contraction operator to reduce noise, because large singular values point to the position of interesting information, and small singular values point to the position of the noise. In addition, to better preserve the structural information of the image, an adaptive iterative regularization technique based on fuzzy logic classification is proposed. Finally, a potentially noise-free image is obtained by unbiased inverse VST. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is competitive with several popular Poisson denoising techniques in both visual and objective metrics.     

Noise classification and automatic restoration system using non-local regularization frameworks

ABSTRACT

Medical, satellite or microscopic images differ in the imaging techniques used, hence their underlying noise distribution also are different. Most of the restoration methods including regularization models make prior assumptions about the noise to perform an efficient restoration. Here we propose a system that estimates and classifies the noise into different distributions by extracting the relevant features. The system provides information about the noise distribution and then it gets directed into the restoration module where an appropriate regularization method (based on the non-local framework) has been employed to provide an efficient restoration of the data. We have effectively addressed the distortion due to data-dependent noise distributions such as Poisson and Gamma along with data uncorrelated Gaussian noise. The studies have shown a 97.7% accuracy in classifying noise in the test data. Moreover, the system also shows the capability to cater to other popular noise distributions such as Rayleigh, Chi, etc.     

Image SR-based NLM and DCNN improved IBP with cubic B-spline

ABSTRACT

Image super-resolution (SR) techniques aim to estimate high-resolution (HR) image from low-resolution (LR) image. Existing SR method has slow convergence and recovery of high-frequency details are inaccurate. To overcome these issues, two algorithms have been proposed for image SR based on non-local means improved iterative back projection (NLM-IIBP), deep convolutional neural network improved iterative back projection (DCNN-IIBP) to produce high-resolution images with low noise, minimal blur by restoring high-frequency details. In NLM-IIBP denoised images have been interpolated using cubic B-spline interpolation and processed using IIBP based on guided bilateral method. NLM preserves the edges effectively, but does not consider high dimensional information and over smoothing during noise minimization. To further improve the resolution, NLM is replaced by DCNN. DCNN denoising method suppresses different noises at different noise levels. The proposed algorithms have been analysed and compared with existing approaches using various parameters to prove the effectiveness.     

Image denoising algorithms based on fractional sincα with the covariance of fractional Gaussian fields

Image denoising has been considered as an essential image processing problem that is difficult to address. In this study, two image denoising algorithms based on fractional calculus operators are proposed. The first algorithm uses the convolution of covariance of fractional Gaussian fields with the fractional sinc_α (FS) (sinc function of order α). The second algorithm uses the convolution of covariance of fractional Gaussian fields with the fractional differential Heaviside function, which is the limit of FS. In the proposed algorithms, the given noisy image is processed in a blockwise manner. Each processed pixel is convolved with the mask windows on four directions. The final filtered image based on either FS or fractional differential Heaviside function (FDHS) can be obtained by determining the average magnitude of the four convolution test results for each filter mask windows. The outcomes are evaluated using visual perception and peak signal to noise ratio. Experiments prove the effectiveness of the proposed algorithms in removing Gaussian and Speckle noise. The proposed FS and FDHS achieved average PSNR of 28.88, 28.26?dB, respectively, for Gaussian noise. The improvements outperform those achieved with the use of Gaussian and Wiener filters.     

Four‐neighborhood clique kernel: A general framework for Bayesian and variational techniques of noise reduction in magnetic resonance images of the brain

Several algorithms have been proposed in the literature for image denoising but none exhibit optimal performance for all range and types of noise and for all image acquisition modes. We describe a new general framework, built from four‐neighborhood clique system, for denoising medical images. The kernel quantifies smoothness energy of spatially continuous anatomical structures. Scalar and vector valued quantification of smoothness energy configures images for Bayesian and variational denoising modes, respectively. Within variational mode, the choice of norm adapts images for either total variation or Tikhonov technique. Our proposal has three significant contributions. First, it demonstrates that the four‐neighborhood clique kernel is a basic filter, in same class as Gaussian and wavelet filters, from which state‐of‐the‐art denoising algorithms are derived. Second, we formulate theoretical analysis, which connects and integrates Bayesian and variational techniques into a two‐layer structured denoising system. Third, our proposal reveals that the first layer of the new denoising system is a hitherto unknown form of Markov random field model referred to as single‐layer Markov random field (SLMRF). The new model denoises a specific type of medical image by minimizing energy subject to knowledge of mathematical model that describes relationship between the image smoothness energy and noise level but without reference to a classical prior model. SLMRF was applied to and evaluated on two real brain magnetic resonance imaging datasets acquired with different protocols. Comparative performance evaluation shows that our proposal is comparable to state‐of‐the‐art algorithms. SLMRF is simple and computationally efficient because it does not incorporate a regularization parameter. Furthermore, it preserves edges and its output is devoid of blurring and ringing artifacts associated with Gaussian‐based and wavelet‐based algorithms. The denoising system is potentially applicable to speckle reduction in ultrasound images and extendable to three‐layer structure that account for texture features in medical images. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 24, 224–238, 2014     

A novel blind super‐resolution technique based on the improved Poisson maximum a posteriori algorithm

Image restoration has received considerable attention. In many practical situations, unfortunately, the blur is often unknown, and little information is available about the true image. Therefore, the true image is identified directly from the corrupted image by using partial or no information about the blurring process and the true image. In addition, noise will be amplified to induce severely ringing artifacts in the process of restoration. This article proposes a novel technique for the blind super‐resolution, whose mechanism alternates between de‐convolution of the image and the point spread function based on the improved Poisson maximum a posteriori super‐resolution algorithm. This improved Poisson MAP super‐resolution algorithm incorporates the functional form of a Wiener filter into the Poisson MAP algorithm operating on the edge image further to reduce noise effects and speed restoration. Compared with that based on the Poisson MAP, the novel blind super‐resolution technique presents experimental results from 1‐D signals and 2‐D images corrupted by Gaussian point spread functions and additive noise with significant improvements in quality. © 2003 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J Imaging Syst Technol, 12, 239–246, 2002; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ima.10032     

Study on error calibration of fiber optic gyroscope under intense ambient temperature variation

A novel adaptive forward linear prediction (FLP) denoising algorithm and a temperature drift modeling and compensation concept based on ambient temperature change rate for fiber-optic gyroscope (FOG) are presented to calibrate the errors caused by intense ambient temperature variation. The intense ambient temperature variation will bring large temperature errors, which will degrade the performance of FOG. To analyze the temperature variation, characteristics of FOG temperature experiments are developed at first. Then the adaptive FLP denoising algorithm is employed to eliminate the noise aiming at reducing noise interference. After that, a simple modeling concept of building the compensation model between temperature drift and ambient temperature change rate is first to be given (we have not found a report of better results in any literature). The semiphysical simulation results show that the proposed method significantly reduces the noise and drift caused by intense ambient temperature variation.     

基于局部坐标二次微分的自适应全变分去噪复原

针对传统TV去噪复原算法以梯度模值作为图像的边缘检测算子,无法清晰地识别边缘和灰度渐变区及去除平坦区内的孤立噪声的问题,提出了一种基于局部坐标二次微分的边缘检测算子对传统模型进行改进。改进后的模型能根据各像素点的新检测算子信息,自适应选取复原模型中决定扩散强弱的参数,并且利用图像局部信息对正则化项和保真项进行加权。同时在数值实现上,采用一种基于梯度矢量的方向变化的方法来实现散度离散化,以更加有效地保留图像的局部细节信息。数值试验表明,该算法在克服灰度渐变区内的阶梯效应和保留图像的细节边缘方面明显优于传统算法。     

OVMD-MPE群稀疏全变分去噪算法研究

轴承振动数据在采集过程中易受噪声干扰,无法有效突出微弱局部故障脉冲,从而影响轴承故障诊断效率.针对这一问题,提出了一种OVMD-MPE的群稀疏全变分去噪算法.首先,利用变分模态分解分解信号,再利用蚱蜢优化算法获得变分模态分解的最优参数;然后,计算各模态分量的经验模态分解,分离出噪声主导分量和有用分量;最后,通过群稀疏全...     

Performance evaluation of 67 denoising filters in ultrasound images: A systematic comparison analysis

Noise corrupts ultrasound images and degrades spatial and contrast resolutions. Hence, it is challenging to characterize the lesions precisely using ultrasound images. The present study aims to evaluate 67 denoising filters and select the best one for ultrasound image denoising. Seven test images were synthesized to evaluate the performance of filters at three different noise levels. Eleven full-reference quantitative image quality metrics (IQMs) were employed to evaluate the performance of the filters. A new filter evaluation method, Rank Analysis, was introduced and utilized at each noise level. The ten best filters with the smallest mean rank in all noise levels were defined for further analysis on real ultrasound images. The Rank Analysis was also employed for real ultrasound images, and filters were evaluated based on 14 IQMs (11 full-reference and three no-reference). Finally, the best filter was defined using the repeated measures analysis statistical test. According to the Rank Analysis results, the Spatial correlation (SCorr) filter obtained the best results with the mean rank scores±SD of 1 ± 0, which was significantly better than the other nine filters (p < 0.001). The second-best results were achieved by three filters, Bitonic, most homogeneous neighborhood, and Lee diffusion (p < 0.05). We concluded that SCorr is the best filter for ultrasound image denoising. It can be used in the pre-processing step before segmentation and diagnostic procedures. In addition, a new filter evaluation method, Rank Analysis, was introduced in this study, which is easy to use, fast, and provides reliable results. So, it can be used to evaluate newly developed filters in the future studies.     

Characteristic function equations for the state of dynamic systems with Gaussian, Poisson, and Lévy white noise

The Itô formula for semimartingales is applied to develop equations for the characteristic function of the state of linear and non-linear dynamic systems with Gaussian, Poisson, and Lévy white noise, viewed as the formal derivatives of Brownian, compound Poisson, and Lévy processes, respectively. These equations can be obtained if the drift and diffusion coefficient of a dynamic system are polynomials of the system state and the driving noise is Gaussian or Poisson. It was not possible to derive equations for the characteristic function for the state of systems driven by Lévy white noise. Numerical results are presented for dynamic systems with real-valued states driven by Gaussian, Poisson, and Lévy white noise processes.     

Image speckle noise denoising by a multi-layer fusion enhancement method based on block matching and 3D filtering

In order to improve speckle noise denoising of block matching and 3D filtering (BM3D) method, an image frequency-domain multi-layer fusion enhancement method (MLFE-BM3D) based on nonsubsampled contourlet transform (NSCT) has been proposed. The method designs an NSCT hard threshold denoising enhancement to preprocess the image, then uses fusion enhancement in NSCT domain to fuse the preliminary estimation results of images before and after the NSCT hard threshold denoising, finally, BM3D denoising is carried out with the fused image to obtain the final denoising result. Experiments on natural images and medical ultrasound images show that MLFE-BM3D method can achieve better visual effects than BM3D method, the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) of the denoised image is increased by 0.5?dB. The MLFE-BM3D method can improve the denoising effect of speckle noise in the texture region, and still maintain a good denoising effect in the smooth region of the image.     

散斑干涉条纹图的总变分去噪方法

去除散斑条纹图中的噪声是电子散斑干涉测量技术的关键问题.提出将总变分图像去噪方法应用于电子散斑干涉条纹图滤波过程中,并对保真系数进行了改进.用总变分模型定义图像的能量函数,利用变分法求得满足能量函数的最优解,将图像去噪过程转化为求解偏微分方程的过程.分别对计算机模拟的条纹图和实验获得的条纹图进行了测试,定性和定量分析的结果表明该技术能够在显著滤波的同时保持条纹的对比度.     

A robust variational approach to super-resolution with nonlocal TV regularisation term

Abstract

Multi frame super-resolution (SR) reconstruction algorithms make use of complimentary information among low-resolution (LR) images to yield a high-resolution (HR) image. Inspired by recent development on the video denoising problem, we propose a robust variational approach for SR-based on a constrained variational model that uses the nonlocal total variation (TV) as a regularisation term. In our method, a weighted fidelity term is proposed to take into account inaccurate estimates of the registration parameters and the point spread function. Moreover, we introduce the nonlocal TV as a regularisation term in order to take into account complex spatial interactions within images. In this way, important features and fine details are enhanced simultaneously with noise reduction. Furthermore, an alternative nonlocal TV regularisation is proposed based on a better weight function which integrates gradient similarity and radiometric similarity. Experiments show the effectiveness and practicability of the proposed method.     

一种结合小波变换和维纳滤波的图像去噪算法

目的为了有效消除噪声图像中的椒盐噪声、高斯噪声甚至混合噪声,结合维纳滤波的优势和小波分解各分量的特点,提出一种新的图像去噪算法。方法该算法先将含噪声图像进行小波变换,分离出1个低频分量和3个中高频分量,然后对低频分量进行自适应维纳滤波,对3个中高频分量用Canny算子提取边缘,最后将处理后的4个分量进行重构得到去噪后的图像。结果仿真结果表明,该算法对扫描仪引入的常见噪声均表现出较好的去噪效果,PSNR值均大于20 d B。尤其是对于高斯噪声和混合噪声,新算法去噪后的PSNR结果高于维纳滤波、软阈值小波滤波和文献[9]算法1~8 d B,效果较好。结论结合小波变换和维纳滤波的图像去噪算法,能够较好去除噪声图像的多种类型噪声,是一种较为优秀的去噪算法。     

基于像素同龄组的航拍图像去噪方法

由于受到光照、机身震动等拍摄环境的影响,航拍图像中常常混有高斯噪声和脉冲噪声。针对这一现象,提出一种结合改进的中值滤波和维纳滤波的像素同龄组去噪算法。首先将图像根据像素值的不同,分为若干像素同龄组;然后根据每个同龄组的特点,有针对性地进行中值滤波或维纳滤波;最后,借助航拍绝缘子图像,完成仿真实验,并与单独中值滤波、维纳滤波的去噪效果进行对比。实验结果表明,该方法在处理混有高斯噪声和脉冲噪声的航拍图像方面,具有良好的去噪效果。     

小波去噪中噪声估计失真判别方法

研究小波阈值去噪时存在的噪声估计失真问题。当采用常见的阈值确定方法对含有较强高频分量的信号进行小波去噪时,小波分析的频带能量泄漏现象会导致噪声估计失真,从而使小波阈值去噪出现较大的偏差。从小波分解的d1细节层和d2细节层的相关性角度,揭示d2细节层频带能量泄漏对噪声估计影响的规律,提出根据d1、d2细节层的最大相关系数判别噪声估计失真的方法。最后,给出解决噪声估计失真的方法。实验表明,该方法可以很好地判别小波去噪中是否出现噪声估计失真,可以避免出现去噪后信号有用信息损失严重的问题。