Effect Comparison of Speckle Noise Reduction Filters on 2D-Echocardigraphic Images

Authors: Faten A. Dawood, Rahmita W. Rahmat, Suhaini B. Kadiman, Lili N. Abdullah, Mohd D. Zamrin

Abstract:

Echocardiography imaging is one of the most common diagnostic tests that are widely used for assessing the abnormalities of the regional heart ventricle function. The main goal of the image enhancement task in 2D-echocardiography (2DE) is to solve two major anatomical structure problems; speckle noise and low quality. Therefore, speckle noise reduction is one of the important steps that used as a pre-processing to reduce the distortion effects in 2DE image segmentation. In this paper, we present the common filters that based on some form of low-pass spatial smoothing filters such as Mean, Gaussian, and Median. The Laplacian filter was used as a high-pass sharpening filter. A comparative analysis was presented to test the effectiveness of these filters after being applied to original 2DE images of 4-chamber and 2-chamber views. Three statistical quantity measures: root mean square error (RMSE), peak signal-to-ratio (PSNR) and signal-tonoise ratio (SNR) are used to evaluate the filter performance quantitatively on the output enhanced image.

Keywords: Gaussian operator, median filter, speckle texture, peak signal-to-ratio

Digital Object Identifier (DOI): doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1331435

References:

[1] S. Finn, M. Glavin, and E. Jones. "Speckle Reduction in Echocardiography: Trends and Perceptions". Echocardiography-New Techniques Chapter 3. In Tech - Open Access Publisher, 2011, pp:41- 68. ISBN 978-953-307-762-8.
[2] M. N. Nobi, and M. A. Yousuf. "A new Method to Remove Noise in Magnetic Resonance and Ultrasound Images". JORNAL OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH, JSR publication . J. Sci. Res. 2011, 3(1): pp. 81-89.
[3] S. Kalaivani N. and R.S. D. Wahidabanu. "A View on Despeckling in Ultrasound Imaging". International Journal of Signal Processing, Image Processing and Pattern Recognition. September 2009, Vol. 2, No.3, pp:85-98.
[4] S. Sudha, G. R. Suresh, and R. Sukanesh. "Speckle Noise Reduction in Ultrasound Images by Wavelet Thresholding based on Weighted Variance". International Journal of Computer Theory and Engineering. IACSIT, 2009, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp: 1793-8201.
[5] Faten A.A. Dawood, Rahmita W. Rahmat, and Suhaini B. Kadiman et al. "Automatic boundary detection of wall motion in two-dimensional echocardiography images". Journal of Computer Science. J. Computer Sci., 2011, 7(8), pp: 1261-1266.
[6] Md. Robiul Hogue, and Md. Rashed-Al-Mahfuz. "A new Approach in Spatial Filtering to Reduce Speckle Noise". International Journal of Soft Computing and Engineering. IJSCE, 2011, Volume-1, Issue-3, pp:29-30.
[7] Juan Zapata, and Ramon Ruiz. "On Speckle Noise Reduction In Medical Ultrasound Images". Recent Advances in Signals and Systems. 2009, pp:126-131.
[8] Maria, C.R., F.R. Adson, and F.V. Daniel. "Semi automatic detection of the left ventricular border". Proceeding of the 30th Annual International IEEE EMBS Conference. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 2008 Aug. 20-24, pp: 218-221.
[9] WAN M. HAFIZAH, and EKO S. ANTO. "Automatic Region of Interest Generation for Kidney Ultrasound Images". Recent Researches in Applied Informatics and Remote Sensing. 2011, pp:70-75. ISBN:978- 1-61804-0398.
[10] Shweta Deopujari, Yogita Dubey and M.M. Mushrif," Left Ventricular segmentation of 2-D echocardiographic image: A survey". International Conference on Communication System and Network Technologies. IEEE 2011, pp:563-566.
[11] A. Bovik. Handbook of Image and Video Processing. Academic Press, San Diego, 2000. ISBN:0-12-119790-5.
[12] Hussein, Z.R., R.W. Rahmat and D.M. Zamrin et al. "Pre-processing Importance for Extracting Contours from Noisy Echocardiographic Images". Journal of Comp. Inform. Sci. IJCSNS, 2009, VOL.9 No.3, pp:79-85.
[13] Nandagopalan S., and B.S. Adiga et al. "Automatic segmentation and ventricular border detection of 2D echocardiographic images combining k-means clustering and active contour model". Second International Conference on Computer and Network Technology. Proceeding of the IEEE Computer Society, 2010, pp:447-451.
[14] E. Boonchieng, W. Boonchieng, and R. Kanjanavanit." Edge-Detection and Segmentation Methods for Two-Dimentional Echocardiograms". Computers in Cardiology. IEEE, 2004, pp:541-544.
[15] Raman Maini, and Himanshu Aggarwal. "PEFORMANCE EVALUATION OF VARIOUS SPECKLE NOISE REDUCTION FILTERS ON MEDICAL IMAGES". International Journal of Recent Trends in Engineering ACEEE. REVIEW PAPER, 2009, Vol 2, No. 4, pp: 22-25.