Title :
Noise reduction of tissue harmonic images using information of fundamental echo
Author :
Yamamura, Takuya ; Tanabe, Masayuki ; Okubo, Kan ; Tagawa, Norio
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Inf. & Commun. Syst. Eng., Tokyo Metropolitan Univ., Hino, Japan
Abstract :
Tissue Harmonic Imaging (THI) is used for obtaining high spatial resolution medical ultrasound images. THI has high range resolution because of its wide bandwidth compared with fundamental imaging. Additionally azimuth resolution of THI is also high. However, amplitude of harmonic components is smaller than that of a fundamental component. Additionally, frequency dependent attenuation is severe especially for harmonic components. These phenomena mean that THI is susceptible to noise. In this study, using fundamental components and intensity characteristics of harmonic components with respect to the distance from a sound source, we propose a method for improving the SNR of THI with keeping its high-resolution nature. We show the effectiveness of the proposed method through the simulations.
Keywords :
biological tissues; biomedical ultrasonics; image denoising; image resolution; medical image processing; azimuth resolution; frequency dependent attenuation; fundamental echo; harmonic component; high spatial resolution medical ultrasound image; noise reduction; tissue harmonic imaging; Computational modeling; Harmonic analysis; Image resolution; Imaging; Noise; Power harmonic filters; Ultrasonic imaging; Fundamental Echo; Harmonic Echo; Maximum a Posteriori Estimation; Tissue Harmonic Imaging; Variance-covariance Matrix;
Conference_Titel :
Ultrasonics Symposium (IUS), 2011 IEEE International
Conference_Location :
Orlando, FL
Print_ISBN :
978-1-4577-1253-1
DOI :
10.1109/ULTSYM.2011.0358
