• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
• /
• v.21 no.2
• /
• pp.109-118
• /
• 2000

본 논문에서는 일반적인 초음파 의료 영상 시스템에서 제공되는 단면 영상의 화질을 현저히 향상시킬 수 있는 영향 개선 기법들을 제안하였다. 제안된 기법들은 현재 대부분의 초음파 영상 시스템에 적용되는 접속기법과는 달리 한 프레임에 해당하는 RF 수신 신호들을 저장하고 합성구경 기법에 기반해서 수신신호들을 처리함으로써, 초음파 영상의 화질을 결정하는 주요 성능 변수인 해상도, 신호 대 잡음비, 주사속도 등을 개선시킬 수 있다. 제안된 기법들을 검증하기 위하여 RF 수신신호들을 저장할 수 있는 실험 장치를 제작한 후 실제 실험을 통하여 성능 평가를 수행하였다. 실험 결과 기존 시스템에 비해서 매우 우수한 영상을 얻을 수 있었으며, 시편 및 인체 데이터 경우에 모두 동일한 효과가 나타남을 확인 할 수 있었다.

• Proceedings of the Korean Institute of Information and Commucation Sciences Conference
• /
• 2015.10a
• /
• pp.507-509
• /
• 2015

본 논문에서는 지방종 초음파 영상에서 지방종을 자동적으로 추출하는 방법을 제안한다. 제안된 방법은 초음파 영상에 Monotone Cubic Spline 보간법을 이용하여 ROI영역을 추출한다. 추출된 ROI 영역에 Fuzzy Stretching 기법을 적용하여 명암 대비를 강조한 후, ART2 알고리즘과 8방향 윤곽선 추적 알고리즘을 적용하여 잡음을 제거한 후에 지방종의 후보 영역을 추출한다. 추출된 지방종의 후보 영역 중에서 형태학적으로 타원 형태를 띠거나 가장 큰 후보 영역의 정보를 이용하여 Labeling 기법을 적용하여 최종적으로 지방종 영역을 추출한다. 제안된 방법을 지방종 초음파 영상에 실험한 결과, 지방종 영역이 비교적 정확히 추출되는 것을 실험을 통하여 확인하였다.

• The KIPS Transactions:PartA
• /
• v.14A no.2
• /
• pp.77-84
• /
• 2007

The intima media thickness(IMT) of the carotid artery from B mode ultrasound images has recently been proposed as the most useful index of individual atherosclerosis and can be used to predict major cardiovascular events. Ultrasonic measurements of the IMT are conventionally obtained by manually tracing interfaces between tissue layers. The drawbacks of this method are the inter and intra observer variability and its inefficiency. In this paper, we present a multiresolution snake method combined with the dynamic programming, which overcomes the various noises and sensitivity to initialization of conventional snake. First, an image pyramid is constructed using the Gaussian pyramid that maintains global edge information with smoothing in the images, and then the boundaries are automatically detected in the lowest resolution level by minimizing a cost function based on dynamic programming. The cost function includes cost terms which are representing image features and geometrical continuity of the vessel interfaces. Since the detected boundaries are selected as initial contour of the snake for the next level, this automated approach solves the problem of the initialization. Moreover, the proposed snake improves the problem of converging th the local minima by defining the external energy based on multiple image features. In this paper, our method has been validated by computing the correlation between manual and automatic measurements. This automated detection method has obtained more accurate and reproducible results than conventional edge detection by considering multiple image features.

• Proceedings of the KAIS Fall Conference
• /
• 2009.12a
• /
• pp.961-964
• /
• 2009

본 논문은 복합재료로부터 얻어진 C-scan영상에서의 효과적인 잡음 제거에 관한 연구 내용이다. 복합재료에서의 결함을 검출하는 것은 여러 실용, 응용분야에서 관심을 가지는 주제이다. 초음파 영상은 대부분이 육안으로 정확한 판단을 하기에는 어렵고, 잡음의 영향으로 정확한 결함에 대한 영역을 파악하는데 문제를 발생시킨다. 결함의 정확한 판별을 위해서는 물체의 영역을 정확히 판별하는 것이 중요하지만 영상에서 잡음에 대한 문제를 우선 해결해야 한다. C-scan 영상에서의 배경과 결함의 경계영역을 보존하면서 잡음 제거를 위해 웨이브렛(Wavelet) 변환을 이용하는 방법을 제안한다. 특히, C-scan 영상에서 Filtering을 적용하는데에 있어 드비시(Daubechies) Wavelet Filtering이 결함영역에 대한 좀 더 명확한 분석이 가능하게 함을 얘기하고자 한다.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.19 no.6
• /
• pp.1296-1300
• /
• 2015

Ganglion cysts are commonly observed cystic tumor in association with the joints and tendons of the appendicular skeleton. In this paper we propose a method to extract ganglion cysts from ultrasound images with intelligent image processing. The method consists of fuzzy stretching preprocessing to enhance the contrast between related organs and 8-directional contour tracking to model the boundaries of the cysts and labelling procedure to compute the size of cysts. In experiment, we verified that the proposed method extracts ganglion cysts accurately from ultrasound images.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.19 no.11
• /
• pp.2540-2545
• /
• 2015

In this paper, we propose a novel method to extract appendix from ultrasound image automatically to avoid such subjectivity issue. In the process, we apply a series of image processing algorithms such as Ends_in search stretching for emphasizing brightness contrast and binarization, region labelling, and cubic spline interpolation for extracting lower bound fasicia line that is the base of extracting the appendix. Knowing that the appendix is located at the lower organ area below the bottom fascia line, we conduct a series of image processing techniques to find the fascia line correctly. And then we apply ART2 algorithm to the organ area in order to extract appendix accurately. Through experiment, the effectiveness of the proposed method is verified based on the field experts' evaluations.

• Journal of Korea Multimedia Society
• /
• v.11 no.9
• /
• pp.1296-1301
• /
• 2008

Ultrasonography constructs pictures of areas inside the body needs in diagnosis by bouncing high-enorgy sound waves(ultrasound) off internal tissues or organs. In constructing an ultrasonographic image, the weakness of bounding signals induces noises and detailed differences of brightness, so that having a difficulty in detecting and diagnosing with the naked eyes in the analysis of ultrasonogram. Especially, the difficulty is extended when diagnosing muscle areas by using ultrasonographic images in the musculoskeletal test. In this paper, we propose a novel image processing method that computationally extracts a muscle area from an ultrasonographic image to assist in diagnosis. An ultrasonographic image consists of areas corresponding to various tissues and internal organs. The proposed method, based on features of intensity distribution, morphology and size of each area, extracts areas of the fascia, the subcutaneous fat and other internal organs, and then extracts a muscle area enclosed by areas of the fascia. In the extraction of areas of the fascia, a series of image processing methods such as histogram stretching, multiple operation, binarization and area connection by labeling is applied. A muscle area is extracted by using features on relative position and morphology of areas for the fascia and muscle areas. The performance evaluation using real ultrasonographic images and specialists' analysis show that the proposed method is able to extract target areas being approximate to real muscle areas.

• The Journal of the Acoustical Society of Korea
• /
• v.15 no.5
• /
• pp.21-29
• /
• 1996

Industrial equipment, such as power plant, is required to operate reliably, continuously and economically under rather severe conditions of temperature, stress, and enbironment. To test structural integrity and fitness, ultrasonic nondestructive testing is used because of effectiveness and simplicity. In this paper, wavelet transform based least mean square(LMS) algorithm is applied to reduce the influence of the interference occurring between randomly positioned small scatters. The RUN test is performed to check the nonstationarity of the speckle noise signal. The performance of this new approach is compared with that of the time domain LMS algorithm by means of condition numbers, signal-to-noise ratio and 3-D image. As a result, the wavelet transform based LMS algorithm shows better performance than the time domain LMS algorithm in this experiment.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Intelligent Systems
• /
• v.22 no.3
• /
• pp.341-346
• /
• 2012

In rehabilitation where ultrasonographic diagnosis is not popular, it could be subjective by medical expert's experience. Thus, it is necessary to develop an objective automative procedure in ultrasonic image analysis. A disadvantage of existing automative analytic procedure in musculoskeletal system is to designate an incorrect muscle area when the figure of fascia is vague. In this study, we propose a new procedure to extract more accurate muscle area in abdomen ultrasonic image for that purpose. After removing unnecessary noise from input image, we apply End-in Search algorithm to enhance the contrast between fascia and muscle area. Then after extracting initial muscle area by Up-Down search, we trace the fascia area with a mask based on morphological and directional information. By this tracing of mask movements, we can emphasize the fascia area to extract more accurate muscle area in result. This new procedure is proven to be more effective than existing methods in experiment using convex ultrasound images that are used in real world rehabilitation diagnosis.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
• /
• v.14 no.6
• /
• pp.1391-1396
• /
• 2010

Recently, communication components prefer Bluetooth or Zigbee for PAN. However, using these makes expensive and complicated products such as audio equipments, mobile phones, PC, etc. for transmitting simple messages with low rate. In this paper, we propose wireless communication method using ultrasonic in the audio frequency limit band with speakers and microphones which are in products. We suggest transmitting and receiving methods in the audio frequency limit band for transmitting data without affecting audio signal, and implement an ultrasonic communication modem. Finally, we verify the performance of the ultrasonic communication modem by experiments in an environment with background noise.