Acceleration of Landweber-type algorithms by suppression of projection on the maximum singular vector

A procedure that speeds up convergence during the initial stage (the first 100 forward and backward projections) of Landweber-type algorithms, for iterative image reconstruction for positron emission tomography (PET), which include the Landweber, generalized Landweber, and steepest descent algorithms, is discussed. The procedure first identifies the singular vector associated with the maximum singular value of the PET system matrix, and then suppresses projection of the data on this singular vector after a single Landweber iteration. It is shown that typical PET system matrices have a significant gap between their two largest singular values; hence, this suppression allows larger gains in subsequent iterations, speeding up convergence by roughly a factor of three.     

Regularized image reconstruction algorithms for positron emission tomography

We develop algorithms for obtaining regularized estimates of emission means in positron emission tomography. The first algorithm iteratively minimizes a penalized maximum-likelihood (PML) objective function. It is based on standard de-coupled surrogate functions for the ML objective function and de-coupled surrogate functions for a certain class of penalty functions. As desired, the PML algorithm guarantees nonnegative estimates and monotonically decreases the PML objective function with increasing iterations. The second algorithm is based on an iteration dependent, de-coupled penalty function that introduces smoothing while preserving edges. For the purpose of making comparisons, the MLEM algorithm and a penalized weighted least-squares algorithm were implemented. In experiments using synthetic data and real phantom data, it was found that, for a fixed level of background noise, the contrast in the images produced by the proposed algorithms was the most accurate.     

A Novel Finite-Element-Based Algorithm for Fluorescence Molecular Tomography of Heterogeneous Media

The knowledge of optical properties distribution of heterogeneous media has significant impact on the reconstructed fluorescence image quality in fluorescence molecular tomography (FMT). In this study, a novel finite-element-based algorithm for FMT of heterogeneous media is proposed. In the algorithm, optical properties are reconstructed using the conjugate gradient method. A modified method based on reverse differential scheme is deduced for calculating the gradient when the detector points are not restricted on boundary nodes. With the recovered optical properties, linear relationship between known surface measurements of emission light and unknown fluorescence yield is then obtained. FMT reconstruction is implemented by combining algebraic reconstruction technique (ART) and Landweber iteration method. With initial value provided by ART, Landweber iteration method improves the quantification smoothly with small step length between neighboring iterations. The algorithm was evaluated using phantoms of different heterogeneity configurations. Results show that the reconstructed fluorescence yield is insensitive to various degrees of heterogeneity for the proposed algorithm. In contrast, when assuming homogeneous optical properties, it shows that more underestimation of optical properties results in more underestimation of the reconstructed fluorescence yield. Fast computation speed of the proposed algorithm is also demonstrated in this study.     

Acceleration and filtering in the generalized Landweber iteration using a variable shaping matrix

The generalized Landweber iteration with a variable shaping matrix is used to solve the large linear system of equations arising in the image reconstruction problem of emission tomography. The method is based on the property that once a spatial frequency image component is almost recovered within in in the generalized Landweber iteration, this component will still stay within in during subsequent iterations with a different shaping matrix, as long as this shaping matrix satisfies the convergence criterion for the component. Two different shaping matrices are used: the first recovers low-frequency image components; and the second may be used either to accelerate the reconstruction of high-frequency image components, or to attenuate these components to filter the image. The variable shaping matrix gives results similar to truncated inverse filtering, but requires much less computation and memory, since it does not rely on the singular value decomposition.     

基于Landweber迭代的图像重建算法

本文尝试将一种新型的基于Landweber迭代算法用于电阻抗断层图像(EIT)重建。该算法与线性反投影算法不同,Landweber算法可以明显地改进图像质量。仿真结果表明,它不仅可以消除噪声干扰,而且能加快收敛速度。     

A factorization approach for cone-beam reconstruction on a circular short-scan

In this paper, we introduce a new algorithm for 3-D image reconstruction from cone-beam (CB) projections acquired along a partial circular scan. Our algorithm is based on a novel, exact factorization of the initial 3-D reconstruction problem into a set of independent 2-D inversion problems, each of which corresponds to finding the object density on one, single plane. Any such 2-D inversion problem is solved numerically using a projected steepest descent iteration scheme. We present a numerical evaluation of our factorization algorithm using computer-simulated CB data, without and with noise, of the FORBILD head phantom and of a disk phantom. First, we study quantitatively the impact of the reconstruction parameters on the algorithm performance. Next, we present reconstruction results for visual assessment of the achievable image quality and provide, for comparison, results obtained with two other state-of-the-art reconstruction algorithms for the circular short-scan.      

Multigrid tomographic inversion with variable resolution data and image spaces.

A multigrid inversion approach that uses variable resolutions of both the data space and the image space is proposed. Since the computational complexity of inverse problems typically increases with a larger number of unknown image pixels and a larger number of measurements, the proposed algorithm further reduces the computation relative to conventional multigrid approaches, which change only the image space resolution at coarse scales. The advantage is particularly important for data-rich applications, where data resolutions may differ for different scales. Applications of the approach to Bayesian reconstruction algorithms in transmission and emission tomography with a generalized Gaussian Markov random field image prior are presented, both with a Poisson noise model and with a quadratic data term. Simulation results indicate that the proposed multigrid approach results in significant improvement in convergence speed compared to the fixed-grid iterative coordinate descent method and a multigrid method with fixed-data resolution.     

Iterative deblurring for CT metal artifact reduction

Iterative deblurring methods using the expectation maximization (EM) formulation and the algebraic reconstruction technique (ART), respectively, are adapted for metal artifact reduction in medical computed tomography (CT). In experiments with synthetic noise-free and additive noisy projection data of dental phantoms, it is found that both simultaneous iterative algorithms produce superior image quality as compared to filtered backprojection after linearly fitting projection gaps. Furthermore, the EM-type algorithm converges faster than the ART-type algorithm in terms of either the I-divergence or Euclidean distance between ideal and reprojected data in the authors' simulation. Also, for a given iteration number, the EM-type deblurring method produces better image clarity but stronger noise than the ART-type reconstruction. The computational complexity of EM- and ART-based iterative deblurring is essentially the same, dominated by reprojection and backprojection. Relevant practical and theoretical issues are discussed.     

燃油喷雾内部构造可视化的激光CT技术(1)——喷雾图象重建方法的研究

为应用激光CT(Computed Tomography)技术实现燃油喷雾内部构造可视化,本文针对燃油喷雾的特点,对卷积反投影法(Convolution back projection简称CBP)、代数重建技术(Algebraic reconstruction technique简称ART)和同时迭代重建技术(Simultaneous iterative reconstruction technique简称SIRT)三种算法应用于喷雾图象的重建进行了研究.在P540图象处理系统上对标准喷雾模型进行重建,结果表明在投影数据存在噪声时,SIRT法重建图象质量最佳,但所需时间最长,CBP法重建图象质量最差,但运算时间最少,而ART法介于两者之间.     

基于噪声与图像同步迭代来确定时间步进法的规整化参数

为了在反卷积过程中正确地估计噪声的方差,该文构造一幅纯噪声图像跟实际的观测图像同步进行反卷积计算,并把纯噪声图像的方差作为观测图像中噪声方差的估计值来辅助计算规整化参数。针对规整化的各项异性,该文提出了能够保持两种噪声同步变化的特殊的规整化项。新的规整化项在迭代纯粹噪声图像时使用,这样确保每次迭代都可以保持人工噪声与实际图像噪声的统计特性相一致。在能够准确知道迭代过程中图像包含噪声的方差的时候,该文建立了规整化参数与图像噪声方差之间的关系式并转化成简单的解一元二次方程问题。实验证明新的算法不但更好地抑制了噪声而且避免了过平滑,基于时间步进法计算变分图像恢复的适应性被明显的提高了。     

Object dependency of resolution in reconstruction algorithms with interiteration filtering applied to PET data

In this paper, we study the resolution properties of those algorithms where a filtering step is applied after every iteration. As concrete examples we take filtered preconditioned gradient descent algorithms for the Poisson log likelihood for PET emission data. For nonlinear estimators, resolution can be characterized in terms of the linearized local impulse response (LLIR). We provide analytic approximations for the LLIR for the class of algorithms mentioned above. Our expressions clearly show that when interiteration filtering (with linear filters) is used, the resolution properties are, in most cases, spatially varying, object dependent and asymmetric. These nonuniformities are solely due to the interaction between the filtering step and the Poisson noise model. This situation is similar to penalized likelihood reconstructions as studied previously in the literature. In contrast, nonregularized and postfiltered maximum-likelihood expectation maximization (MLEM) produce images with nearly "perfect" uniform resolution when convergence is reached. We use the analytic expressions for the LLIR to propose three different approaches to obtain nearly object independent and uniform resolution. Two of them are based on calculating filter coefficients on a pixel basis, whereas the third one chooses an appropriate preconditioner. These three approaches are tested on simulated data for the filtered MLEM algorithm or the filtered separable paraboloidal surrogates algorithm. The evaluation confirms that images obtained using our proposed regularization methods have nearly object independent and uniform resolution.     

Variational optical flow computation in real time.

This paper investigates the usefulness of bidirectional multigrid methods for variational optical flow computations. Although these numerical schemes are among the fastest methods for solving equation systems, they are rarely applied in the field of computer vision. We demonstrate how to employ those numerical methods for the treatment of variational optical flow formulations and show that the efficiency of this approach even allows for real-time performance on standard PCs. As a representative for variational optic flow methods, we consider the recently introduced combined local-global method. It can be considered as a noise-robust generalization of the Horn and Schunck technique. We present a decoupled, as well as a coupled, version of the classical Gauss-Seidel solver, and we develop several multgrid implementations based on a discretization coarse grid approximation. In contrast, with standard bidirectional multigrid algorithms, we take advantage of intergrid transfer operators that allow for nondyadic grid hierarchies. As a consequence, no restrictions concerning the image size or the number of traversed levels have to be imposed. In the experimental section, we juxtapose the developed multigrid schemes and demonstrate their superior performance when compared to unidirectional multgrid methods and nonhierachical solvers. For the well-known 316 x 252 Yosemite sequence, we succeeded in computing the complete set of dense flow fields in three quarters of a second on a 3.06-GHz Pentium4 PC. This corresponds to a frame rate of 18 flow fields per second which outperforms the widely-used Gauss-Seidel method by almost three orders of magnitude.     

Satellite image blind restoration based on surface fitting and multivariate model

Owing to the blurring effect from atmosphere and camera system in the satellite imaging, a blind image restoration algorithm is proposed which includes the modulation transfer function （MTF） estimation and the image restoration. In the MTF estimation stage, based on every degradation process of satellite imaging-chain, a combined parametric model of MTF is given and used to fit the surface of normalized logarithmic amplitude spectrum of degraded image. In the image restoration stage, a maximum a posteriori （MAP） based edge-preserving image restoration method is presented which introduces multivariate Laplacian model to characterize the prior distribution of wavelet coefficients of original image. During the image restoration, in order to avoid solving high nonlinear equations, optimization transfer algorithm is adopted to decom- pose the image restoration procedure into two simple steps： Landweber iteration and wavelet thresholding denoising. In the numerical experiment, the satellite image restoration results from SPOT-5 and high resolution camera （HR） of China ＆ Brazil earth resource satellite （CBERS-02B） ane compared, and the proposed algorithm is superior in the image edge preservation and noise inhibition.     

去除乘性噪声的二阶总广义变分模型及算法

针对总变分去噪模型容易导致阶梯效应的缺陷,提 出了一种新的乘性噪声去噪模型。在新模型中,二阶总广义变分(TGV)是正则项,它能自动平 衡一阶和二阶导数项,使得新模型在去除乘性噪声的同时不但能够保 持图像的边缘信息,而且还能去除阶梯效应。为了有效的计算该模型,设计了一个快速迭代算 法。在算法中,首先采用分裂方法和交替方向法将原问题变为两个相关的子问题,然后分别对 子问题利用牛顿法和原始-对偶算法。实验结果表明,与同类模型相比,本文方法无论是在视 觉效果还是定量指标,如峰值信噪比(PSNR)等都有明显地提高。     

电容层析成像图像重建算法对比

图像重建算法在电容层析成像技术的实际应用中起着至关重要的作用。针对图像重建算法的研究,文中将线性反投影法、奇异值分解法、代数重建算法、Landweber算法、Tikhonov正则化算法的基本原理进行对比。基于MATLAB仿真平台对4种多相流流型进行仿真,并从图像误差、相关系数、计算时间3个方面对比重建图像的效果。分析结果表明,直接算法的图像重建速度优于迭代算法,但其图像重建质量劣于迭代算法。     

基于MG-CG算法的图像超分辨率重建

提出一种基于多重网格(MG)和共扼梯度(CG)算法相结合的图像超分辨率重建快速算法.首先采用Tikhonov正则化方法给出图像超分辨率重建模型;然后在系统介绍MG和CG算法的基础上,针对超分辨率重建中常见对称正定稀疏线性方程的求解,提出多重网格-共扼梯度(MG-CG)算法;详细讨论了MG-CG算法的光滑、限制、插值操作以及计算复杂度.实验结果表明该算法与MG、CG和Richardson迭代算法相比,具有更快的收敛速度.     

电阻抗断层图像重建算法研究——预迭代算法提出

本文分析了Landweber法与广义逆的关系,通过理论推导,证实Landweber 法实际上是用迭代法构造广义逆矩阵的一种变形,解释了Landweber法多次迭代后的成像结果与广义逆最小模解类似的现象,在此基础上,提出一种新的重建算法——预迭代法,将重建过程分为离线预迭代及在线一步成像,明显提高了成像速度。     

Sequential and parallel image restoration: neural networkimplementations

Sequential and parallel image restoration algorithms and their implementations on neural networks are proposed. For images degraded by linear blur and contaminated by additive white Gaussian noise, maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimation and regularization theory lead to the same high dimension convex optimization problem. The commonly adopted strategy (in using neural networks for image restoration) is to map the objective function of the optimization problem into the energy of a predefined network, taking advantage of its energy minimization properties. Departing from this approach, we propose neural implementations of iterative minimization algorithms which are first proved to converge. The developed schemes are based on modified Hopfield (1985) networks of graded elements, with both sequential and parallel updating schedules. An algorithm supported on a fully standard Hopfield network (binary elements and zero autoconnections) is also considered. Robustness with respect to finite numerical precision is studied, and examples with real images are presented.     

Necessary and Sufficient Convergence Conditions for Algebraic Image Reconstruction Algorithms

The Landweber scheme is an algebraic reconstruction method and includes several important algorithms as its special cases. The convergence of the Landweber scheme is of both theoretical and practical importance. Using the singular value decomposition (SVD), we derive an iterative representation formula for the Landweber scheme and consequently establish the necessary and sufficient conditions for its convergence. In addition to verifying the necessity and sufficiency of known convergent conditions, we find new convergence conditions allowing relaxation coefficients in an interval not covered by known results. Moreover, it is found that the Landweber scheme can converge within finite iterations when the relaxation coefficients are chosen to be the inverses of squares of the nonzero singular values. Furthermore, the limits of the Landweber scheme in all convergence cases are shown to be the sum of the minimum norm solution of a weighted least-squares problem and an oblique projection of the initial image onto the null space of the system matrix.     

基于Contourlet域分块压缩感知的图像融合

针对传统图像融合方法导致纹理细节丢失的现象,提出了一种基于抗混叠移不变Contourlet域的分块压缩感知（block-based compressed sensing,BCS）图像融合算法——Contourlet_BCS。把善于表达图像纹理及边缘信息的Contourlet变换引入了压缩感知稀疏表示中,同时对分解得到的低频系数采取加权的区域能量融合规则,高频系数采取基于广义高斯分布模型的加权融合规则进行图像系数融合,最后在压缩感知框架下利用带平滑处理的投影Landweber算法重构。实验结果表明,Contourlet_BCS融合效果优于传统方法,融合的图像纹理清晰,边缘细节信息更为丰富。