A method for modeling noise in medical images

We have developed a method to study the statistical properties of the noise found in various medical images. The method is specifically designed for types of noise with uncorrelated fluctuations. Such signal fluctuations generally originate in the physical processes of imaging rather than in the tissue textures. Various types of noise (e.g., photon, electronics, and quantization) often contribute to degrade medical images; the overall noise is generally assumed to be additive with a zero-mean, constant-variance Gaussian distribution. However, statistical analysis suggests that the noise variance could be better modeled by a nonlinear function of the image intensity depending on external parameters related to the image acquisition protocol. We present a method to extract the relationship between an image intensity and the noise variance and to evaluate the corresponding parameters. The method was applied successfully to magnetic resonance images with different acquisition sequences and to several types of X-ray images.     

Detection and display of defects in medical scintigraphic images

To achieve the evaluation of the lesion detectability of a program implemented by us on a minicomputer system to indicate possible defects on liver scans, we simulated a set of geometrical phantoms with different patterns of cold lesions to obtain LROC curves in different cases. Then, to check its clinical value, the program was applied to 44 liver scintigrams of patients among which 7 occurred to be pathological. These liver scintigrams had been evaluated by 6 clinicians so that a comparison between the program and the clinicians could be performedd on the basis of the corresponding LROC curves. Moreover, once an abnormality had been detected by the program, the abnormality was processed in order to perform a psychovisual evaluation of the image more easily: an adapted local 2-level display of the possible defect was superimposed on the scan to enhance it and to facilitate diagnosis.     

Interactive display and analysis of 3-D medical images

The ANALYZE software system, which permits detailed investigation and evaluation of 3-D biomedical images, is discussed. ANALYZE can be used with 3-D imaging modalities based on X-ray computed tomography, radionuclide emission tomography, ultrasound tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. The package is unique in its synergistic integration of fully interactive modules for direct display, manipulation, and measurement of multidimensional image data. One of the most versatile and powerful capabilities in ANALYZE is image volume rendering for 3-D display. An important advantage of this technique is that it can be used to display 3-D images directly from the original data set and to provide on-the-fly combinations of selected image transformations, such as surface segmentation, cutting planes, transparency, and/or volume set operations (union, intersection, difference, etc.). The module has been optimized to be fast (interactive) without compromising image quality. The software is written entirely in C and runs on standard UNIX workstations.     

Model-based deformable surface finding for medical images

Describes a new global shape parameterization for smoothly deformable three-dimensional (3-D) objects, such as those found in biomedical images, whose diversity and irregularity make them difficult to represent in terms of fixed features or parts. This representation is used for geometric surface matching to 3-D medical image data, such as from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The parameterization decomposes the surface into sinusoidal basis functions. Four types of surfaces are modeled: tori, open surfaces, closed surfaces and tubes. This parameterization allows a wide variety of smooth surfaces to be described with a small number of parameters. Extrinsic model-based information is incorporated by introducing prior probabilities on the parameters. Surface finding is formulated as an optimization problem. Results of the method applied to synthetic images and 3-D medical images of the heart and brain are presented.     

A new image registration method for grey images

The proposed algorithm relies on a group of new formulas for calculating tangent slope so as to address angle feature of edge curves of image. It can utilize tangent angle features to estimate automatically and fully the rotation parameters of geometric transform and enable rough matching of images with huge rotation difference. After angle compensation, it can search for matching point sets by correlation criterion, then calculate parameters of affine transform, enable higher-precision emendation of rotation and transferring. Finally, it fulfills precise matching for images with relax-tense iteration method. Compared with the registration approach based on wavelet direction-angle features, the matching algorithm with tangent feature of image edge is more robust and realizes precise registration of various images. Furthermore, it is also helpful in graphics matching.     

一种新的SAR图像的相干斑滤波方法

该文分析了合成孔径雷达(SAR)图像中的相干斑(Speckle)的统计特性,基于小波变换(WT),提出了一种新的相干斑滤波方法,该方法将小波变换后的HH分量采用Lee滤波,对HG,GH和GG分量则利用恒虚警技术(CFAR),保留重要的目标和边缘,再将这四个分量进行重构。实验结果表明,该方法具有相当良好的相干斑抑制性能,等效视数得以大幅度提高,并且能很好地保持原图像的边沿特征,其性能明显优于通常采用的Lee算法。     

A new 3-D display method for 12-lead ECG

A new three-dimensional (3-D) 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG) display method is presented which employs a 3-D rectangular coordinate system to display the 12-lead cardiac electric signals in two 3-D graphs. The 3-D graph consists of a temporal axis representing the time domain of the cardiac signals, a spatial axis representing the lead positions, and an amplitude axis representing the voltages of the cardiac signals. The six horizontal plane leads and the other six frontal plane leads were displayed in two 3-D graphs, respectively. The voltages of the cardiac signals were represented in rainbow-like colors. Cubic interpolation was employed to insert interconnecting points between neighboring leads on each plane and to smooth the surface of the 3-D ECG graphs. The 3-D ECG graphs of a normal subject, a patient with myocardial infarction, and a patient with left bundle branch block were presented in this paper. This new display method could not only be used as a complementary display method to the 12-lead ECG, but also provide physicians with an overall integral view about the spatial distribution of the cardiac signals.     

A new method for distortion correction of electronic endoscope images

A new method to correct the barrel distortion of an electronic endoscope image is presented. A correction model assuming circularly symmetric distortion is introduced with the following model parameters: the center of distortion and the coefficients of polynomials representing the distortion correction in the radial direction. If the imaging system is distortion-free, straight lines in the object space should be imaged as straight lines. Based on this criterion, a distorted image of a standard pattern consisting of a grid of several straight lines is recorded, and the model parameters are then estimated as a basis for straightening distorted lines. This method has the advantage of not needing a careful placement of the standard pattern for calibration. Correction results are presented for the grid pattern chart to verify a sufficient degree of correction. Examples of distortion correction of real intestinal images and physicians' comments are also presented.     

A new method for registration-based medical image interpolation

A new technique is presented for interpolating between grey-scale images in a medical data set. Registration between neighboring slices is achieved with a modified control grid interpolation algorithm that selectively accepts displacement field updates in a manner optimized for performance. A cubic interpolator is then applied to pixel intensities correlated by the displacement fields. Special considerations are made for efficiency, interpolation quality, and compression in the implementation of the algorithm. Experimental results show that the new method achieves good quality, while offering dramatic improvement in efficiency relative to the best competing method.     

A variational method for geometric regularization of vascular segmentation in medical images

In this paper, a level-set-based geometric regularization method is proposed which has the ability to estimate the local orientation of the evolving front and utilize it as shape induced information for anisotropic propagation. We show that preserving anisotropic fronts can improve elongations of the extracted structures, while minimizing the risk of leakage. To that end, for an evolving front using its shape-offset level-set representation, a novel energy functional is defined. It is shown that constrained optimization of this functional results in an anisotropic expansion flow which is usefull for vessel segmentation. We have validated our method using synthetic data sets, 2-D retinal angiogram images and magnetic resonance angiography volumetric data sets. A comparison has been made with two state-of-the-art vessel segmentation methods. Quantitative results, as well as qualitative comparisons of segmentations, indicate that our regularization method is a promising tool to improve the efficiency of both techniques.     

三维医学图像的混合噪声去除方法

针对医学图像在采集传输等过程中易受噪声污染,且目前多数去噪方法对混合噪声去噪效果不好,影响三维重构精度的问题,提出了基于自适应三维分数阶积分和中值滤波结合的混合噪声去除方法。首先介绍了几种传统方法在去除混合噪声中的不足,然后基于三维图像梯度信息提出了三维分数阶积分的自适应分数阶阶数,利用分数阶积分和中值滤波的各自优点,将两者结合对混合噪声去噪,并提出了基于混合去噪的边缘曲面追踪算法。实验结果和数据分析表明,提出的混合去噪方法能够从噪声污染的医学图像切片中追踪出高精度边缘曲面,与传统去噪方法相比,具有更好的去噪效果。     

A method for brain 3D surface reconstruction from MR images

Due to the encephalic tissues are highly irregular, three-dimensional （3D） modeling of brain always leads to compli- cated computing. In this paper, we explore an efficient method for brain surface reconstruction from magnetic reso- nance （MR） images of head, which is helpful to surgery planning and tumor localization. A heuristic algorithm is pro- posed foi＂ surface triangle mesh generation with preserved features, and the diagonal length is regarded as the heuristic information to optimize the shape of triangle. The experimental results show that our approach not only reduces the computational complexity, but also completes 3D visualization with good quality.     

A new multiscale Bayesian algorithm for speckle reduction in medical ultrasound images

This paper introduces a new multiscale speckle reduction method based on the extraction of wavelet interscale dependencies to visually enhance the medical ultrasound images and improve clinical diagnosis. The logarithm of the image is first transformed to the oriented dual-tree complex wavelet domain. It is then shown that the adjacent subband coefficients of the log-transformed ultrasound image can be successfully modeled using the general form of bivariate isotropic stable distributions, while the speckle coefficients can be approximated using a zero-mean bivariate Gaussian model. Using these statistical models, we design a new discrete bivariate Bayesian estimator based on minimizing the mean square error (MSE). To assess the performance of the proposed method, four image quality metrics, namely signal-to-noise ratio, MSE, coefficient of correlation, and edge preservation index, were computed on 80 medical ultrasound images. Moreover, a visual evaluation was carried out by two medical experts. The numerical results indicated that the new method outperforms the standard spatial despeckling filters, homomorphic Wiener filter, and new multiscale speckle reduction methods based on generalized Gaussian and symmetric alpha-stable priors.     

A high-performance measurement method for artery intimamedia thickness in medical ultrasound images

A high-performance measurement method for the artery intima-media thickness (IMT) in medical ultrasound images is proposed. The scheme mainly consists of two parts. The first part is the detection process, including adaptive gray stretching for image enhancing, gradient transforming to restrain the over-segmentation, and the watershed algorithm for edge extraction. The intima can be detected automatically and exactly. The second part, combined with regional positioning and boundary fitting stages, is used to measure the IMT. Experimental results show that the proposed scheme can yield a good measurement result, and the calculation time can satisfy the practical requirement.     

生物医学表面信息检测新方法研究

本文在血液等液体的表面上，激振出了一维表面波光栅，当激光束照射时，形成一列线阵分布的衍射光斑，它包含了生物表面特性的光信息，用电荷耦合器件等光电系统采集光信息与处理数据，从而为定量地表征生物表面信息，开创了新的研究途径。     

一种户外全彩LED显示屏亮度色度检测新方法

本文针对户外全彩LED显示屏的亮度和色度检测,提出了一种基于数字图像处理技术的检测新方法。首先对采集的LED显示屏图像进行预处理;然后通过水平与垂直投影来确定LED像素点的位置及亮度、色度的计算区域;最后记录亮度和色度不一致的LED像素点,以便进行后续校正。实验表明,该检测方法可实现对户外全彩LED显示屏亮度和色度的检测及后续的校正,大大提高LED显示屏的检测速度和显示质量。     

Perceptual coding of images for halftone display

The authors present a new technique for coding gray-scale images for facsimile transmission and printing on a laser printer. They use a gray-scale image encoder so that it is only at the receiver that the image is converted to a binary pattern and printed. The conventional approach is to transmit the image in halftoned form, using entropy coding (e.g., CCITT Group 3 or JBIG). The main advantages of the new approach are that one can get higher compression rates and that the receiver can tune the halftoning process to the particular printer. They use a perceptually based subband coding approach. It uses a perceptual masking model that was empirically derived for printed images using a specific printer and halftoning technique. In particular, they used a 300 dots/inch write-black laser printer and a standard halftoning scheme ("classical") for that resolution. For nearly transparent coding of gray-scale images, the proposed technique requires lower rates than the standard facsimile techniques.     

A new method of optically reading domains in Bismuth Titanate for display and memory applications

Three previously proposed methods of optically detecting ferroelectric domains in bismuth titanate (Bi4Ti3O12) are reviewed and the merits of each discussed. A fourth method which is introduced involves a tilt of a natural crystal plate about the b axis and utilizes the difference in birefringence between domains. The major advantages of the new read method are its high efficiency and contrast and its insensitivity to the optical degradation or "depoling" which occurs after repeated polarization reversals. Resolution test patterns written into Bi4Ti3O12crystals via a photoconductor film show up to 90 lines/mm resolution. In addition, photographic images have been stored, demonstrating a gray-scale capability.