Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Use of phase diversity and modified phase congruence for edge enhancement in ultrasonic imaging

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Signal, Image and Video Processing Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Enhancement of boundaries is essential for the classification of suspicious regions in ultrasonic medical B scan images of internal organs so that malignancies can be identified and detected. Phase congruence has been suggested as a means to delineate the boundaries in images. Estimation of phase congruence requires the use of log-Gabor filters. In this work, spatial phase-only filters are used to generate the phase and magnitude information necessary for the estimation of phase congruence. Taking into account the multiplicative non-Rayleigh nature of speckle in these images, a modified version of phase congruence is used alongside pre-filtering with median filters to reduce speckle. Processing was undertaken on two computer-synthesized images and two B scan images of tissue-mimicking phantoms acquired using a commercial ultrasonic imaging unit. The results show that the modified phase congruence estimated after the filtering with four spatial phase-only filters enhances the boundaries of target-like regions in these images. Since these phase-only filters require fewer parameters than log-Gabor filters, the technique demonstrated in this work can provide a simple means to use phase congruence to highlight boundaries in ultrasonic images corrupted by speckle.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Subscribe and save

Springer+ Basic
$34.99 /Month
  • Get 10 units per month
  • Download Article/Chapter or eBook
  • 1 Unit = 1 Article or 1 Chapter
  • Cancel anytime
Subscribe now

Buy Now

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Explore related subjects

Find the latest articles, discoveries, and news in related topics.

References

  1. Stavros T.A., Thickman D., Rapp C.L., Dennis M.A., Parker S.H., Sisney G.A.: Solid breast nodules: use of sonography to distinguish between benign and malignant lesions. Radiology 196, 123–134 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Kadah Y.M., Farag A.A., Zurada J., Badawi A.M., Youssef A.M.: Classification algorithms for quantitative tissue characterization of diffuse liver disease from ultrasound images. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 15, 466–478 (1998)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Howlett D.C., Marchbank N.D., Allan S.M.: Sonographic assessment of the symptomatic breast—a pictorial review. J. Diag. Radiogr. Imag. 5, 3–12 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Dantas R.G., Costa E.T.: Ultrasound speckle reduction using modified Gabor filters. IEEE Trans. Ultrason. Ferroelect. Freq. Contr. 54, 530–538 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Burckhardt C.B.: Speckle in ultrasound B-mode scans. IEEE Trans. Sonics Ultrason. 25, 1–6 (1978)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Shankar P.M.: The use of the compound pdf in ultrasonic tissue characterization. Phy. Med. Bio. 49, 1007–1015 (2004)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Shankar P.M.: Use of two-dimensional phase-only filters and compounding for speckle reduction and edge detection in ultrasonic B-scan images. Appl. Opt. 48, 5589–5597 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Stetson P.F., Sommer F.G., Macovski A.: Lesion contrast enhancement in medical ultrasound imaging. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 16, 416–425 (1997)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Chen C.M., Lu H.H.S., Han K.C.: A textural approach based on Gabor functions for texture edge detection in ultrasound images. Ultra. Med. Biol. 27, 515–534 (2001)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Dantas, R.G., Leeman, S., Costa, E.T., Jones, J.P., Oliveira E.J.V.: Phase diversity for speckle reduction. In: Walker, W.F., Insana, M.F. (eds.) Medical Imaging 2003: ultrasonic imaging and signal processing. Proceedings of the SPIE, vol. 5035. pp. 414–422 (2003)

  11. Kotzer T., Rosen J., Shamir J.: Phase extraction pattern recognition. Appl. Opt. 31, 1126–1137 (1992)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. Kovesi P.: Phase congruence: a low-level image invariant. Psychological Res. 64, 136–148 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Hacihaliloglu I., Abugharbieh R., Hodgson A.J., Rohling R.N.: Bone surface localization in ultrasound using image phase based features. Ultra. Med. Biol. 35, 1475–1487 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Oppenheim A.V., Lim J.S.: The importance of phase in signals. Proc IEEE 69, 529–541 (1981)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Venkatesh S., Owens R.: On the classification of image features. Pattern Rec. Lett. 11, 339–349 (1990)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  16. Grau V., Noble A.J.: Adaptive multiscale ultrasound compounding using phase information. Proc MICCAI. Lecture Notes in Computer Science 3749, 589–596 (2005)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Wang W., Lia J., Huang F., Feng H.: Design and implementation of log-Gabor filter in fingerprint image enhancement. Pattern Rec. Lett. 29, 301–308 (2008)

    Article  MATH  Google Scholar 

  18. Horner J.L., Gianino P.D.: Phase-only matched filtering. Appl. Opt. 23, 812–816 (1984)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Brennan D.G.: Linear diversity combining techniques. Proc. IRE 47, 1075–1102 (1959)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Cao G., Shi P., Hu B.: Ultrasonic liver discrimination using 2D phase congruence. IEEE Trans. Biomed. Eng. 53, 2116–2119 (2006)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Donoho D.L.: De-noising by soft thresholding. IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory 11, 613–627 (1995)

    Article  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  22. Mulet-Parada M., Noble J.A.: 2D1T boundary detection in echocardiography. Med Imag. Anal. 4, 21–30 (2000)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Ye X., Noble J.A.: 3D freehand echocardiography for automatic left ventricle reconstruction and analysis based on multiple acoustic windows. IEEE Trans. Med. Imag. 21, 1051–1058 (2002)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Amin D.V., Kanade T., Digioia A.M., Jaramaz B.: Ultrasound registration of the bone surface for surgical navigation. J Comp. Aid Surg. 8, 1–16 (2003)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

    P. M. Shankar

Authors
  1. P. M. Shankar
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to P. M. Shankar.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Shankar, P.M. Use of phase diversity and modified phase congruence for edge enhancement in ultrasonic imaging. SIViP 7, 317–324 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-011-0240-x

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11760-011-0240-x

Keywords

Search

Navigation