Anisotropic Diffusion of Ultrasound Constrained by Speckle Noise Model

K. Krissian, Kirby Vosburgh, Ron Kikinis, C.-F. Westin
0004
October, 2004

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Abstract

Ultrasound images provide the clinician with non-invasive, low cost, and real-time images that can help them in diagnosis and plannnig and therapy. However, although the human eye is able to derive the meaningful information from these images, automatic processing is very difficult because of the noise and artefacts present in the image. In this work, we propose to extend the current anisotropic diffusion technique to deal with the speckle noise present in the Ultrasound images. To this end, we use a previously derived model of the noise, and we write the restoration scheme as a energy minization constrained by the noise model and parameters. This approach leads to a new data attachment term whose optimal weight can be automatically estimated.

From left to right, 3D ultrasound dataset of a liver, zoom in a region of interest, result of the our filter. (right).

Reference

Krissian K, Vosburgh K, Kikinis R, Westin CF. Anisotropic diffusion of ultrasound constrained by speckle noise model. Technical Report 0004, Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Laboratory of Mathematics in Imaging, 2004. ISSN.

Bibtex entry

@TechReport{krissianLMI0004-04,
  author         = {Karl Krissian and Kirby Vosburgh and Ron Kikinis and       
                   Carl-Fredrik Westin},                                       
  title          = {Anisotropic Diffusion of Ultrasound Constrained by Speckle 
                   Noise Model},                                               
  institution    = {Department of Radiology, Brigham and Women's Hospital,     
                   Harvard Medical School},                                    
  year           = 2004,                                                       
  number         = 0004,                                                       
  address        = {Laboratory of Mathematics in Imaging},                     
  month          = {October},                                                  
  note           = {ISSN}
}

Grants

CIMIT

Research areas

Restoration, Ultrasound, Anisotropic Diffusion