An improved feature based image fusion technique for enhancement of liver lesions

Abstract This paper describes two methods for enhancement of edge and texture of medical images. In the first method optimal kernel size of range filter suitable for enhancement of liver and lesions is deduced. The results have been compared with conventional edge detection algorithms. In the second method the feasibility of feature based pixel wise image fusion for enhancing abdominal images is investigated. Among the different algorithms developed in the medical image fusion pixel level fusion is capable of retaining the maximum relevant information with better implementation and computational efficiency. Conventional image fusion includes multi-modal fusion and multi-resolution fusion. The present work attempts to fuse together, texture enhanced and edge enhanced images of the input image in order to obtain significant enhancement in the output image. The algorithm is tested in low contrast medical images. The result shows an improvement in contrast and sharpness of output image which will provide a basis for a better visual interpretation leading to more accurate diagnosis. Qualitative and quantitative performance evaluation is done by calculating information entropy, MSE, PSNR, SSIM and Tenengrad values.