Improving motion estimation by accounting for local image distortion

Cardiac elastography is a useful diagnostic technique for detection of heart function abnormalities, based on analysis of echocardiograms. The analysis of the regional heart motion allows assessing the extent of myocardial ischemia and infarction. In this paper, a new two-stage algorithm for cardiac motion estimation is proposed, where the data is taken from a sequence of 2D echocardiograms. The method combines the advantages of block-matching and optical flow techniques. The first stage employs a standard block-matching algorithm (sum of absolute differences) to provide a displacement estimate with accuracy of up to one pixel. At the second stage, this estimate is corrected by estimating the parameters of a local image transform within a test window. The parameters of the image transform are estimated in the least-square sense. In order to account for typical heart motions, like contraction/expansion, translation and rotation, a local affine model is assumed within the test window. The accuracy of the new algorithm is evaluated using a sequence of 500 grayscale B-mode images, which are generated as distorted, but known copies of an original ROI, taken from a real echocardiogram. The accuracy of the motion estimation is expressed in terms of errors: maximum absolute error, root-mean-square error, average error and standard deviation. The errors of the proposed algorithm are compared with these of the known block-matching technique with cross-correlation and interpolation in the sub-pixel space. Statistical analysis of the errors shows that the proposed algorithm provides more accurate estimates of the heart motion than the cross-correlation technique with interpolation in the sub-pixel space.     

Continuous image distortion by astrophysical thick lenses

Image distortion due to weak gravitational lensing is examined using a non-perturbative method of integrating the geodesic deviation and optical scalar equations along the null geodesics connecting the observer to a distant source. The method we develop continuously changes the shape of the pencil of rays from the source to the observer with no reference to lens planes in astrophysically relevant scenarios. We compare the projected area and the ratio of semi-major to semi-minor axes of the observed elliptical image shape for circular sources from the continuous, thick-lens method with the commonly assumed thin-lens approximation. We find that for truncated singular isothermal sphere and NFW models of realistic galaxy clusters, the commonly used thin-lens approximation is accurate to better than 1 part in 10⁴ in predicting the image area and axes ratios. For asymmetric thick lenses consisting of two massive clusters separated along the line of sight in redshift up to Δz = 0.2, we find that modeling the image distortion as two clusters in a single lens plane does not produce relative errors in image area or axes ratio more than 0.5%.     

书籍扫描图像畸变参数自动计算精度的提高

建立了一个数据文件,用于存储一些在不同弯曲状态下书籍扫描图像页边灰度的曲线数据以及对应的多项式系数。利用多项式来描述在某种弯曲状态下像素灰度与页面上的对应点到扫描仪工作平面之间的距离关系。任意弯曲状态下的书籍扫描图像可以在数据文件中搜索到与其最接近的弯曲状态,并利用对应的多项式系数自动求得最佳畸变参数,用于图像的畸变校正实验,获得了较好的校正效果,最大误差由未校正时的63%下降到了4.4%。这使得在无需人工测量或调整畸变参数的条件下可自动校正书籍扫描图像。     

动态图像序列运动矢量估计算法的研究

运动估计在电子稳像系统中起重要的作用。介绍和比较了几种运动矢量估计算法。为了提高电子稳像系统的性能,提出了在设计电子稳像系统时选取运动矢量估计算法的原则。通过比较应用在航摄图像序列中的投影算法和匹配算法的性能,说明了如何应用运动矢量估计算法的原则。仿真结果表明,根据此原则选取的运动矢量估计算法应用于电子稳像系统是可行的。     

The application of improved block-matching method and block search method for the image motion estimation

Image block matching is one of the motion estimation methods for video inter-frame coding and digital image stabilization. The methods used for matching and searching will greatly affect the accuracy and speed of block matching. The block matching method based on the oblique vectors is suggested in this paper where matching parameters contain both horizontal and vertical vectors in the image blocks at the same time. Improved matching information can be obtained after making correlative calculations in the oblique direction. A novel search method of matching block based on the idea of simulated annealing is presented in this paper to improve the searching speed, accuracy and robustness in the fast operation of the block-matching motion estimation. The simulated annealing algorithm can easily escape from the trap of local minima effectively. With the two methods the block matching can be used for motion estimation at the real-time image processing system and high estimation accuracy can be achieved. An image stabilization system based on DSP (Digital Signal Processing) system is developed to verify this algorithm. Results show that both the matching accuracy and the search speed are improved with the methods presented.     

图像像素坐标表示的镜头畸变模型

镜头畸变是影响测量精度的关键因素之一。非度量镜头畸变校正方法直接将图像物理坐标系下的镜头畸变模型应用于图像像素坐标系,忽略了非单位纵横比的情况。通过对成像过程进行分析,得到了更精确的像素坐标表示的镜头畸变模型,对现有的镜头畸变模型进行了修正,考虑了纵横比对镜头畸变的影响。通过实验,对新模型的可行性进行了验证,实验结果表明,新的模型能够有效地提高了测量精度。     

Single image motion deblurring: An accurate PSF estimation and ringing reduction

In this paper we have proposed a single image motion deblurring algorithm that is based on a novel use of dual Fourier spectrum combined with bit plane slicing algorithm and Radon transform (RT) for accurate estimation of PSF parameters such as, blur length and blur angle. Even after very accurate PSF estimation, the deconvolution algorithms tend to introduce ringing artifacts at boundaries and near strong edges. To prevent this post deconvolution effect, a post processing method is also proposed in the framework of traditional Richardson–Lucy (RL) deconvolution algorithm. Experimental results evaluated on the basis of both qualitative and quantitative (PSNR, SSIM) metrics, verified on the dataset of both grayscale and color blurred images show that the proposed method outperforms the existing algorithms for removal of uniform blur. A comparison with state-of-the-art methods proves the usefulness of the proposed algorithm for deblurring real-life images/photographs.     

一种图像非线性形变的恢复方法

几何成像系统中非线性形变图像的恢复仍是一个未能很好解决的课题。针对常见的双二次、双三次形变图像,提出了以不完全双二次、双三次插值法拟合形变图像,根据形变的特点采用牛顿迭代法和双线性灰度插值法对图像进行恢复。用所提出的方法对失真图像进行恢复,结果表明,仅选用少量参考点便可得到良好的效果。     

Transverse oscillations for tissue motion estimation

This paper gives an overview of the methods developed for tissue motion estimation using transverse oscillation images (TO). TO images are specific radiofrequency ultrasound images featuring oscillations in both spatial directions. The initial studies on TO were published in the late 1990s. This paper reviews the main ideas and applications behind this motion estimation approach. First the origin and motivation of TO is briefly reviewed. Then the beamforming methods that lead to TO images are given, detailing the receive-only approach and the transmit-and-receive approach using synthetic aperture data. The different medical applications where TO has been used are discussed (blood flow, elastography and echocardiography), showing how it can improve motion estimation. Finally, the future perspectives of TO are outlined.     

An MRI denoising method using image data redundancy and local SNR estimation

This paper presents an LMMSE-based method for the three-dimensional (3D) denoising of MR images assuming a Rician noise model. Conventionally, the LMMSE method estimates the noise-less signal values using the observed MR data samples within local neighborhoods. This is not an efficient procedure to deal with this issue while the 3D MR data intrinsically includes many similar samples that can be used to improve the estimation results. To overcome this problem, we model MR data as random fields and establish a principled way which is capable of choosing the samples not only from a local neighborhood but also from a large portion of the given data. To follow the similar samples within the MR data, an effective similarity measure based on the local statistical moments of images is presented. The parameters of the proposed filter are automatically chosen from the estimated local signal-to-noise ratio. To further enhance the denoising performance, a recursive version of the introduced approach is also addressed. The proposed filter is compared with related state-of-the-art filters using both synthetic and real MR datasets. The experimental results demonstrate the superior performance of our proposal in removing the noise and preserving the anatomical structures of MR images.     

A subpixel motion estimation algorithm based on digital correlation for illumination variant and noise image sequences

One of the challenges in practical subpixel motion estimation is how to obtain high accuracy with sufficient robustness to both illumination variations and additive noise. Motivated by the fact that the normalized spatial cross-correlation is invariant to illumination, we introduce a gradient-based subpixel registration method by maximizing the digital correlation (DC) function between the reference and target frames. Such DC function is remodeled with the presence of image noise, yielding that the correlation coefficient is only sensitive to noise standard variance. To fairly suppress the noise corruption, not only the target frame but also the reference one is reformulated into Taylor gradient expression with half but opposite motion vector. The final solution to motion estimates can be approximated into a closed form by reserving first-order coefficient terms of unregistered motion variables. The error trend of approximated solution is discussed. Computer simulations and actual experiments’ results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method to the LMSE-based method and ordinary DC method when illumination variations and noise exist. Among the experiments, the influences of real subpixel translation value and noise variance degree on accuracy are studied; correspondingly, an optimized iterative idea for big translations and the recommended noise level adaptive to our method are introduced.     

Accuracy evaluation of optical distortion calibration by digital image correlation

Due to its convenience of operation, the camera calibration algorithm, which is based on the plane template, is widely used in image measurement, computer vision and other fields. How to select a suitable distortion model is always a problem to be solved. Therefore, there is an urgent need for an experimental evaluation of the accuracy of camera distortion calibrations. This paper presents an experimental method for evaluating camera distortion calibration accuracy, which is easy to implement, has high precision, and is suitable for a variety of commonly used lens. First, we use the digital image correlation method to calculate the in-plane rigid body displacement field of an image displayed on a liquid crystal display before and after translation, as captured with a camera. Next, we use a calibration board to calibrate the camera to obtain calibration parameters which are used to correct calculation points of the image before and after deformation. The displacement field before and after correction is compared to analyze the distortion calibration results. Experiments were carried out to evaluate the performance of two commonly used industrial camera lenses for four commonly used distortion models.     

面向开环扫描系统的超声图像畸变校正方法*

超声显微成像技术广泛应用于工业无损检测领域。相较于闭环、半闭环扫描系统硬件复杂、成本高,开环扫描系统结构简单、成本低,但由于无反馈机制会导致步进电机的非线性运动引起图像像素错位畸变。因此,消除非线性运动带来的错位畸变是采用开环扫描系统实现高质量超声成像的关键。该文提出集最大值投影法、最大类间方差法和中心坐标校正法于一体的MIP-Otsu-C³M方法,对开环扫描系统获得的硬币回波数据采用最大值投影法获取初始灰度图像,采用最大类间方差法获取感兴趣区域的B扫描图像边缘像素位置,并采用中心坐标校正法成功消除像素错位,解决了超声C扫描图像畸变问题。对消除错位畸变的回波数据进行飞行时间法和傅里叶变换法图像重建,直接获得了非畸变的三维图像和透视图像。该新颖算法也验证了最大值投影法可拓展至图像畸变校正应用。     

Interlaced scan CCD image motion deblur for space-variant motion blurs

Motion blur is caused by camera shakes or object motions during exposure when the shutter speed is relatively slow. As for the object motion blur, the degradation of a CCD image is often characterized by space-variant motion blurs, since objects are often moving in different directions at different speeds. But most image restorations for space-variant motion blurs are addressed only for progressive scan CCD images. To address the space-variant image restorations for interlaced scan images, we propose a novel image restoration scheme. First, one interlaced scan image frame is required, which is divided into the odd field and the even field images. These two field images are further segmented into rectangular blocks. The motion vectors are computed in these rectangular blocks using an efficient block matching algorithm. Second, image restoration is performed in these rectangular blocks using a constrained least square algorithm in the odd or even field image, which can both preserve edge structures and remove noises. Our novel scheme is illustrated by restoring a space-variant blurred moving boat image and a synthetic blurred image.     

Compensation for reconstructed image distortion using camera model with lens distortion in incoherent digital holography

Optical Review - In incoherent digital holography (IDH), the reconstructed image may be distorted owing to lens aberration, which degrades image quality. A conventional camera lens is designed such...     

Contrast enhancement for the captured image by estimating local illumination

In image capture, a bad illumination condition has an influence on the image quality, especially contrast of the dark and bright region. The captured image is needed to enhance the contrast. In order to do this, the conventional methods used the general image formation model. However, these methods have somewhat problems as well known. This paper presents a contrast enhancement method using an advanced image formation model in which an image is divided into three components: global illumination, local illumination, and reflectance. The experimental results show that the proposed method yield better performance of color correction over the conventional method.     

用于像移探测的位平面匹配改进算法

像移探测作为电子稳像的重要的步骤,直接影响稳像的精度和速度。针对传统位平面匹配算法的局限,对各阶位平面的探测效果进行了综合测试,并提出了一种改进方案,即对位平面4,5经过下采样后组成一个合成位平面来进行匹配。研究了匹配块大小变化对位平面算法的影响,比较了相邻帧和固定帧两种参考帧选取方法的优劣。实验表明,改进的位平面匹配算法提高了位平面算法的稳健性,在没有增加计算量的前提下,算法精度达到了与全搜索块匹配法相当的程度。     

Correction of the image distortion for laser galvanometric scanning system

Laser galvanometric scanning techniques are commonly used in various image display fields, such as medical imaging, laser display and material processing. The paper gives detail analyses of the image distortion involved in the galvanometric scanning. At the same time, the paper addresses the role of the correction algorithms of the image distortion. Experiment results based on SLS machine prove the efficiency of the correction algorithms.     

Block-based disparity estimation by partial finite ridgelet distortion search (PFRDS)

In stereo vision applications, computing the disparity map is an important issue. Performance of different approaches totally depends on the employed similarity measurements. In this paper finite ridgelet transform is used to define an edge sensitive block distortion similarity measure. Simulation results emphasize to outperform in the conventional criteria and is less sensitive to noise, especially at the edge set of images. To speed computations, a new partial search algorithm based on energy conservation property of FRIT is proposed.     

Improvement of the distortion of aerial displays and proposal for utilizing distortion to emulate three-dimensional aerial image

Optical Review - This paper evaluates the spatial distortion of aerial image and proposes a novel optical design to utilize the distortion as visual expression. Our optical system is based on...