Improvement of estimation parameters in bio-speckle blood flow imaging

Two novel estimation parameters are proposed for bio-speckle blood flow imaging in skin tissue with reducing effects of a speckle contrast and random noises. Estimation parameters are introduced to reduce the effect of the speckle contrast on the sensitivity of the blood flow sensing and to eliminate an offset component due to random noises superimposed on the speckle images. Experiments were conducted for a sample model using ground-glass plates, human vein and finger to confirm the feasibility of the proposed parameters.     

Enhancement in sensitivity of a blood perfusion parameter for frame-rate analysis of bio-speckle image

We have previously presented a blood perfusion parameter by means of the spatial contrast of speckle patterns observed for blood perfusion in skin tissue and a blood vessel. This parameter permits us to visualize a relative blood perfusion distribution from a single speckle pattern. Therefore, it can estimate the blood perfusion with a frame rate of an imaging device employed. This parameter is, however, dependent on the speckle size and the condition of image processing of speckle patterns. In the present study, we estimated this condition with relation to the speckle size for obtaining high sensitivity and good linearity of the parameter to the blood perfusion. Experiments were conducted for ground-glass model, flow model and human wrist to investigate perfusion sensing characteristics of the present parameter.

     

An effective method for reducing speckle noise in digital holography

An effective method for reducing the speckle noise in digital holography is proposed in this paper.Different from the methods based on classical filtering technique,it utilizes the multiple holograms which are generated by rotating the illuminating light continuously.The intensity images reconstructed by a series of holograms generated by rotating the illuminating light possess different speckle patterns.Hence by properly averaging the reconstructed intensity fields,the speckle noises can be reduced greatly.Experimental results show that the proposed method is simple and effective to reduce speckle noise in digital holography.     

Spacetime correlation functions of dynamic speckles produced by a series of moving phase screens

Spacetime correlation functions of the time-varying speckle intensity have been evaluated for the case where speckle patterns are produced in the Fresnel diffraction region by light propagating through a series of moving random-phase screens. The correlation functions are given by a set of recursion formulae which are useful for numerical computations. Three statistical quantities relating to the motion of speckle patterns are derived to examine the relationship between the velocity distribution of the phase screens and the temporal behaviour of resultant speckle patterns. It is found that the velocity differences between the phase screens have a strong effect on both the decorrelation of speckle patterns and the fluctuating speed of the speckle intensity.     

Spacetime correlation functions of dynamic speckles produced by a series of moving phase screens

Abstract

Spacetime correlation functions of the time-varying speckle intensity have been evaluated for the case where speckle patterns are produced in the Fresnel diffraction region by light propagating through a series of moving random-phase screens. The correlation functions are given by a set of recursion formulae which are useful for numerical computations. Three statistical quantities relating to the motion of speckle patterns are derived to examine the relationship between the velocity distribution of the phase screens and the temporal behaviour of resultant speckle patterns. It is found that the velocity differences between the phase screens have a strong effect on both the decorrelation of speckle patterns and the fluctuating speed of the speckle intensity.     

Velocity and density field measurements by digital speckle method

Velocity and density field measurements based on image processing of laser speckle or pseudo-speckle pattern have been developed. Laser speckle velocimetry (LSV) or white-light speckle velocimetry (WSV), which corresponds to a high-image-density PIV, gives a local velocity vector map or whole field velocity contour map of a two-dimensional flow field seeded densely with fine particles. This technique has an advantage in high-speed flow measurement without limit of frame rate except for directional ambiguity. New techniques of laser speckle photography and laser speckle interferometry by means of digital image processing have been developed recently for density field measurements. In laser speckle photography, a local density gradient vector map is reconstructed by cross-correlation evaluation between the reference and the object speckle patterns. In laser speckle interferometry, an equi-density contour map is reconstructed by image subtraction between the reference and the object interferometric speckle patterns.     

Introducing speckle noise maps for Laser Vibrometry

When coherent light scatters from a surface, which is rough on the scale of the wavelength of the light, a speckle pattern is produced. The Laser Vibrometer measures target vibration velocity in the direction of the incident laser beam and typically samples a region of a speckle pattern on its photodetector. Target motions can cause the speckle pattern to change on the photodetector surface, particularly when target motions are non-normal to the direction of the laser beam. This speckle motion modulates the Doppler signal and adds noise to the demodulated output signal. Periodic target motions can cause the speckle noise to become pseudo-random and produce harmonic peaks, with the same fundamental frequency as the genuine target vibrations, which can be indistinguishable from the genuine target vibrations. Typical speckle noise levels are generally considered to be low-level, but they have not so far been adequately quantified. This paper reports preliminary results quantifying speckle noise levels using controlled experimental configurations incorporating periodic in-plane and tilt target motions. Working with commercial Laser Vibrometers, various target surface finishes and treatments are considered and speckle noise maps are produced for each configuration. For a tilting surface, speckle noise has been quantified at approximately 1 μm s^?1/deg s^?1 while, for surfaces with in-plane motion, the sensitivity to speckle noise has been estimated pessimistically at 0.1% of the in-plane velocity. Ultimately, these speckle noise maps will form a valuable practical resource for the Laser Vibrometer user.     

Imaging through dynamic scattering media with stitched speckle patterns

Imaging through scattering media via speckle autocorrelation is a popular method based on the optical memory effect.However,it fails if the amount of valid information acquired is insufficient due to a limited sensor size.In this Letter,we reveal a relationship between the detector and object sizes for the minimum requirement to ensure image reconstruction by defining a sampling ratio R,and propose a method to enhance the image quality at a small R by capturing multiple frames of speckle patterns and piecing them together.This method will be helpful in expanding applications of speckle autocorrelation to remote sensing,underwater probing,and so on.     

Effect of speckle pattern on laser Doppler velocimeters

The effect of speckle pattern on laser Doppler velocimeters is studied theoretically and experimentally. We have found that dynamic speckle patterns can cause error in velocity measurement. Increasing sampling time and using proper signal processing circuits can eliminate this bad effect caused by speckle pattern.The accuracy of velocity measurement is better than 2.1％ in a wide velocity range(4.66-468.86 mm/s)when speckle effects are taken into account.     

Deformation sensing with a multimode POF using speckle correlation processing method

A deformation sensing technique with a multimode plastic optical fibre based on intensity speckle patterns’ correlation coefficient measurement has been presented. Influence of the average speckle size on results of deformation measuring has been studied and discussed. The presented sensing technique provides a good linear response to the applied deformation in a relatively wide operation region. It is shown that the proposed technique is highly sensitive, low-cost and simple to implement in practice.     

Compressed ghost imaging based on differential speckle patterns

We propose a compressed ghost imaging scheme based on differential speckle patterns,named CGI-DSP.In the scheme,a series of bucket detector signals are acquired when a series of random speckle patterns are employed to illuminate an unknown object.Then the differential speckle patterns(differential bucket detector signals) are obtained by taking the difference between present random speckle patterns(present bucket detector signals) and previous random speckle patterns(previous bucket detector signals).Finally,the image of object can be obtained directly by performing the compressed sensing algorithm on the differential speckle patterns and differential bucket detector signals.The experimental and simulated results reveal that CGI-DSP can improve the imaging quality and reduce the number of measurements comparing with the traditional compressed ghost imaging schemes because our scheme can remove the environmental illuminations efficiently.     

A Modified Monte Carlo Model of Speckle Tracking of Shear Wave Induced by Acoustic Radiation Force for Acousto-Optic Elasticity Imaging

A modified Monte Carlo model of speckle tracking of shear wave propagation in scattering media is proposed.The established Monte Carlo model mainly concerns the variations of optical electric field and speckle.The twodimensional intensity distribution and the time evolution of speckles in different probe locations are obtained.The fluctuation of speckle intensity tracks the acoustic-radiation-force shear wave propagation,and especially the reduction of speckle intensity implies attenuation of shear wave.Then,the shear wave velocity is estimated quantitatively on the basis of the time-to-peak algorithm and linear regression processing.The results reveal that a smaller sampling interval yields higher estimation precision and the shear wave velocity is estimated more efficiently by using speckle intensity difference than by using speckle contrast difference according to the estimation error.Hence,the shear wave velocity is estimated to be 2.25 m/s with relatively high accuracy for the estimation error reaches the minimum(0.071).     

一种抗噪分形维计算方法及其在声纳图像识别中的应用

用于计算图像分形维的差分盒计数法(DBC)和鲁棒差分盒计数法(RDBC)都对脉冲噪声和斑点噪声较敏感,为此本文提出一种抗噪差分盒计数法(NRDBC),利用剪切局部标准差(TLSD)来计算图像分形维,由于TLSD可有效滤除脉冲噪声和斑点噪声、且对高斯噪声敏感性小,因此NRDBC能对有噪图像进行可靠的分形维估计。利用多分辨率的DBC、RDBC和NRDBC对混有高斯噪声、脉冲噪声和斑点噪声的7种Brodatz纹理以及3种海底的侧扫声纳图像进行了分类实验,结果表明,本文提出的NRDBC可获得更高的识别率和更好的抗噪性。     

Application of iteration and finite element smoothing technique for displacement and strain measurement of digital speckle correlation

In this paper, an improved method for measuring displacement in digital speckle correlation technology, which is based on an iterative and spatial-gradient algorithm, is developed. After obtaining full-field displacement, both finite element method and 2D generalized cross-validation (GCV) algorithm are adopted for smoothing the displacement field, and then the strain field can be obtained from the smoothed displacement field. The method is estimated by simulated speckle patterns and three-point bending experiment. All the results show the improved method can obtain a reasonable estimation of displacement and strain fields in digital speckle correlation method.     

Assessment of speckle-pattern quality in digital image correlation based on gray intensity and speckle morphology

In digital image correlation (DIC), speckle patterns are generated on the surface of a specimen to resolve uniqueness issues. Thus, speckle patterns significantly affect the accuracy of image correlation. To assess the quality of speckle patterns, the standard deviation of gray intensities within each speckle (SDGIS) is introduced as a new metric. On the basis of the cumulative distribution of SDGIS, speckle-pattern quality measurement (ρ) is proposed, which integrates the features of gray intensity and speckle morphology. Twelve speckle patterns are generated by changing the spraying time and nozzle sizes of an airbrush because these are associated with the speckle volume fraction and speckle size, respectively. In addition, three displacement fields are used to investigate the effects of speckle patterns on the accuracy of the DIC results. For the 12 speckle images associated with the three displacement fields, the correlation results demonstrate that the proposed speckle-pattern quality measurement is inversely proportional to the averaged error of the subset method. This is statistically confirmed by evaluating the correlation coefficient and p-value. Furthermore, the error of the subset method is more affected by speckle patterns than the subset size when the subset size is sufficiently large.     

Effects of red blood cell aggregates dissociation on the estimation of ultrasound speckle image velocimetry

Ultrasound speckle image of blood is mainly attributed by red blood cells (RBCs) which tend to form RBC aggregates. RBC aggregates are separated into individual cells when the shear force is over a certain value. The dissociation of RBC aggregates has an influence on the performance of ultrasound speckle image velocimetry (SIV) technique in which a cross-correlation algorithm is applied to the speckle images to get the velocity field information. The present study aims to investigate the effect of the dissociation of RBC aggregates on the estimation quality of SIV technique. Ultrasound B-mode images were captured from the porcine blood circulating in a mock-up flow loop with varying flow rate. To verify the measurement performance of SIV technique, the centerline velocity measured by the SIV technique was compared with that measured by Doppler spectrograms. The dissociation of RBC aggregates was estimated by using decorrelation of speckle patterns in which the subsequent window was shifted as much as the speckle displacement to compensate decorrelation caused by in-plane loss of speckle patterns. The decorrelation of speckles is considerably increased according to shear rate. Its variations are different along the radial direction. Because the dissociation of RBC aggregates changes ultrasound speckles, the estimation quality of SIV technique is significantly correlated with the decorrelation of speckles. This degradation of measurement quality may be improved by increasing the data acquisition rate. This study would be useful for simultaneous measurement of hemodynamic and hemorheological information of blood flows using only speckle images.     

Exploiting the speckle noise for compressive imaging

An optical setup is proposed for the implementation of compressive sensing with coherent images. This setup specifically exploits the natural multiplicative action of speckle noise occurring with coherent light, in order to optically realize the essential step in compressive sensing which is the multiplication with known random patterns of the image to be acquired. In the test of the implementation, we specifically examine the impact of several departures, that exist in practice, from the ideal conditions of a pure multiplicative action of the speckle. In such practical realistic conditions, we assess the feasibility, performance and robustness of the optical scheme of compressive sensing.     

时间序列散斑干涉场中相位函数的计算

散斑干涉或电子散斑干涉计量应用于连续运动或变形物体时,就会产生一个时变的散斑干涉场,通过摄像系统连续地采集这一时变散斑场,可获得一系列时间序列散斑干涉图,通过对序列散斑图上各点在时间轴上光强值的变化进行分析,提出了一种基于时间序列的分析方法,用以提取干涉场的相位值,进而获得物体全场变形信息。     

Optical velocimetry: a method using two shifted speckle patterns

A new optical method for measuring the lateral velocity of a diffuse object is presented. The speckle pattern, originated by the surface under coherent illumination, is imaged into a linear photodiode array. The scanning time of the array is selected to detect two slightly shifted speckle patterns. By processing the intensity distributions, the velocity of the surface is derived. Some experimental results are shown.     

点扩散函数高斯拟合估计与遥感图像恢复

为了减轻或消除航天遥感相机成像过程中图像退化造成的模糊,突出图像的特征目标,对获取的图像进行了恢复处理。首先,采用陷波滤波器在频率域对遥感图像进行了去噪预处理。然后,通过图像中具有刀刃边缘的地物估计成像系统的退化函数,即点扩散函数;同时,利用高斯拟合对估计的点扩散函数进行校正。最后,利用拟合后的点扩散函数,采用自适应维纳滤波对图像进行恢复。实验结果表明：陷波滤波器基本消除了图像中叠加的条带噪声。与原图相比,细节图像恢复后其方差增大4.395,灰度平均梯度增大1.799,Laplacian梯度增大10.014,图像目视效果更清晰。高斯拟合的点扩散函数用于遥感图像恢复,减轻了图像模糊,使图像细节突出,纹理清晰,利于图像的判读和分析。