title: Scale-based diffusive image filtering preserving boundary sharpness and fine structures.
abstract: Image acquisition techniques often suffer from low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and/or contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR). Although many acquisition techniques are available to minimize these, post acquisition filtering is a major off-line image processing technique commonly used to improve the SNR and CNR. A major drawback of filtering is that it often diffuses/blurs important structures along with noise. In this paper, we introduce two scale-based filtering methods that use local structure size or "object scale" information to arrest smoothing around fine structures and across even low-gradient boundaries. The first of these methods uses a weighted average over a scale-dependent neighborhood while the other employs scale-dependent diffusion conductance to perform filtering. Both methods adaptively modify the degree of filtering at any image location depending on local object scale. Object scale allows us to accurately use a restricted homogeneity parameter for filtering in regions with fine details and in the vicinity of boundaries while a generous parameter in the interiors of homogeneous regions. Qualitative experiments based on both phantoms and patient magnetic resonance images show significant improvements using the scale-based methods over the extant anisotropic diffusive filtering method in preserving fine details and sharpness of object boundaries. Quantitative analyses utilizing 25 phantom images generated under a range of conditions of blurring, noise, and background variation confirm the superiority of the new scale-based approaches.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia 19104-6021, USA.
authors.forename: P K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: Saha
authors.forename: J K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Udupa
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000098:blood supply / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D005583:Fourier Analysis; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000592:standards*; D008961:Models, Structural; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009103:Multiple Sclerosis / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D019047:Phantoms, Imaging / Q000592:standards; D011859:Radiography; D014894:Weights and Measures / Q000592:standards*