title: Noise-driven anisotropic diffusion filtering of MRI.
abstract: A new filtering method to remove Rician noise from magnetic resonance images is presented. This filter relies on a robust estimation of the standard deviation of the noise and combines local linear minimum mean square error filters and partial differential equations for MRI, as the speckle reducing anisotropic diffusion did for ultrasound images. The parameters of the filter are automatically chosen from the estimated noise. This property improves the convergence rate of the diffusion while preserving contours, leading to more robust and intuitive filtering. The partial derivative equation of the filter is extended to a new matrix diffusion filter which allows a coherent diffusion based on the local structure of the image and on the corresponding oriented local standard deviations. This new filter combines volumetric, planar, and linear components of the local image structure. The numerical scheme is explained and visual and quantitative results on simulated and real data sets are presented. In the experiments, the new filter leads to the best results.
authors: Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation, Centro de Tecnología Médica, Dep. de Señales y Comunicaciones, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Campus de Tafira, 35017 Las Palmas, Spain. krissian@dis.ulpgc.es
authors: Karl
authors: K
authors: Krissian
authors: Santiago
authors: S
authors: Aja-Fernández
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D016880:Anisotropy; D016477:Artifacts; D001921:Brain / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000379:methods*; D007090:Image Interpretation, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D010363:Pattern Recognition, Automated / Q000379:methods; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity