A Nonlinear Image Enhancement Method for Digital Mammogram

디지털 맘모그램을 위한 비선형 영상 향상 방법

  • Received : 2012.12.18
  • Accepted : 2013.02.01
  • Published : 2013.01.30

Abstract

Mammography is the most common technique for the early detection of breast cancer. To diagnose correctly and treat of breast cancer efficiently, many image enhancement methods have been developed. This paper presents a nonlinear image enhancement method for the enhancement of digital mammogram. The proposed method is composed of a nonlinear function for brightness improvement and a nonlinear filter for contrast enhancement. The nonlinear function improves the brightness of dark area and extends the dynamic range of bright area, and the nonlinear filter efficiently enhances the specific regions and objects of the mammogram. The final enhanced image was obtained by combining the processed image with the nonlinear function and the filtered image with the nonlinear filter. The proposed nonlinear image enhancement method was confirmed the enhanced performance comparing with other existing methods.

맘모그램은 유방암의 조기발견을 위해 가장 일반적으로 이용되고 있다 유방암의 정확한 진단과 효율적인 치료를 위하여 많은 영상향상 방법들이 개발되어왔다. 본 논문은 디지털 유방 촬영상의 영상향상을 위하여 새로운 비선형 영상향상 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 영상의 밝기 정보를 향상시키기 위한 비선형 함수와 경계와 디테일 정보를 개선하기 위한 비선형 필터로 구성된다. 비선형 함수는 영상의 어두운 영역의 밝기를 향상시키고 밝은 영역의 동적범위를 넓혀주며, 비선형 필터는 영상의 특정 영역이나 객체를 효과적으로 개선시킨다. 최종 향상된 영상은 비선형 함수로 처리한 영상과 비선형 필터로 필터된 영상을 더하여 얻어진다. 제안된 비선형 영상향상 방법은 실험에서 기존 방법과 영상향상 결과를 비교하여 우수한 성능을 확인하였다.

Keywords

References

  1. L.M. Wun, R. M. Merrill, and E. J. Feuer, "Estimation Lifetime and Age-Conditional Probabilities of Developing Cancer," Lifetime Data Analysis, vol. 4, pp. 169-186, 1998 https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009685507602
  2. D. B. Kopans, "The 2009 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force Guidelines Ignore Important Scientific Evidence and Should Be Revised or Withdrawn," Radiology, vol. 256, pp. 15-20, 2010 https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.10100057
  3. R. A. Smith, "Epidemiology of breast cancer categorical course in physis," Tech. Aspects Breast Imageing, Radiol. Soc. North Amer., pp. 21-33, 1993
  4. AF. Laine, S. Schuler, J. Fan, W. Huda, "Mammographic feature enhancement by multiscale analysis," IEEE Trans. Med. Imag., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 725-740, 1994. https://doi.org/10.1109/42.363095
  5. A. Laine, J. Fan, W. Yang, "Wavelets for contrast enhancement of digital mammography," IEEE Eng. Med. Biol. Mag., vol. 14, pp. 536-550, 1995. https://doi.org/10.1109/51.464770
  6. S. Dippel, M. Stahl, R. Wiemker, T. Blaffert, "Multiscale contrast enhancement for radiographies: laplacian pyramid versus fast wavelet transform," IEEE Trans. Med. Imag., vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 343-353, 2002. https://doi.org/10.1109/TMI.2002.1000258
  7. J. Tang, X. Liu, Q. Sun, "A direct image contrast enhancement algorithm in the wavelet domain for screening mammograms," IEEE J. Sel. Top. Sign. Process., vol. 3, no. 1, pp. 74-80, 2009. https://doi.org/10.1109/JSTSP.2008.2011108
  8. R. Hummel, Histogram modification techniques. Computer Graphics and Image Processing, 1975.
  9. S. M. Pizer, E. P. Amburn, J. D. Austin, R. Cromartie, A. Geselowitz, T. Greer, B. H. Romeny, J. B. Zimmerman, K. Zuiderveld, "Adaptive histogram equalization and its variations," Computer Vision Graphics and Image Processing, vol. 39, pp.355-368, 1987. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0734-189X(87)80186-X
  10. G. Ramponi, et al., "Nonlinear unsharp masking methods for image contrast enhancement," J. Electron. Imaging, vol. 5, pp. 353-366, 1996. https://doi.org/10.1117/12.242618
  11. G. Ramponi, A. Polesel, "Rational unsharp masking technique," J. Electron. Imaging, vol. 7, pp. 333-338, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1117/1.482649
  12. G. Ramponi, "A cubic unsharp masking technique for contrast enhancement," Signal Process., vol. 67, pp. 211-222, 1998. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0165-1684(98)00038-3
  13. A. Polesel, G. Ramponi, V. J. Mathews, "Image Enhancement via adaptive unsharp masking," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 9, no. 3, 2000.
  14. K. Panetta, Y. Zhou, S, Agaian, H. Jia, "Nonlinear Unsharp Masking for mammogram enhancement," IEEE Transactions on Information Technology in Biomedicine, vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 918-928, 2011. https://doi.org/10.1109/TITB.2011.2164259
  15. G. Ramponi, "Bi-impulse response design of isotropic quadratic filters," Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 78, no. 4, pp. 665-677, 1990.
  16. N. Strobel, S. K. Mitra, "Quadratic filters for image contrast enhancement," in 1994 28th Asilomar Conf. Signals, Systems and Computers, vol. 1, pp. 208-212, 1994.
  17. Y. Zhou, K. Panetta, S. Agaian, "Mammogram enhancement using alpha weighted quadratic filter," in 2009 Annu. Int. Conf. IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, Minneapolis, Minnesota, pp. 3681-3684, 2009.
  18. S. S. Agaian, B. Silver, K. A. Panetta, "Transform coefficient histogram-based image enhancement algorithms using contrast entropy," IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, vol. 16, no. 3, 2007.
  19. J. Suckling, et al., "The mammographic images analysis society digital mammogram database," Experta Medica International Congress Series, vol. 1069, pp. 375-378, 1994.