Texture Analysis And Speckle Reduction In Medical Echography

A brief review is provided of methods available for speckle reduction. Relatively new techniques for reducing speckle by "intelligent" (i.e. speckle discriminating) image filtering are introduced. These utilize methods of echographic texture analysis, and the multivariate instrument signature of speckle, to recognize and largely eliminate speckle from the display without substantially destroying the structural information in the image. Further developments from a simple filter described previously20, in the form of a non-linear transform applied to one feature and the use of a two-feature discriminator, are shown (qualitatively) to improve filter performance.

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