• Journal of Radiation Protection and Research
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.79-85
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• 2011

OThe purpose of this article was to measure and compare the value of the metal artifact reduction (MAR) algorithm by Dual energy(kVp switching) CT (Computed Tomography) for non using MAR and we introduced new variable Dual energy CT applications through a clinical scan. The used equipment was GE Discovery 750HD with Dual-Energy system(kVp switching). CT scan was performed on the neck and abdomen area subject for patients. Studies were from Dec 20 2010 to Feb 10 2011 and included 25 subject patients with prosthesis. We were measured the HU (Hounsfield Unit) and noise value at metal artifact appear(focal loss of signal and white streak artifact area) according to the using MAR algorithm. Statistical analyses were performed using the paired sample t-test. In patient subject case, the statistical difference of showing HU was p=0.01 and p=0.04 respectively. At maximum black hole artifact area and white streak artifact area according to the using MAR algorithm. However noise was p=0.05 and p=0.04 respectively; and not the affected black hole and white streak artifact area. Dual Energy CT with the MAR algorithm technique is useful reduce metal artifacts and could improve the diagnostic value in the diagnostic image evaluation of metallic implants area.

• The Journal of Korean Society for Radiation Therapy
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.49-56
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• 2017

Purpose: To evaluate the accuracy of the Iterative Metal Artifact Reduction (IMAR) algorithm in correcting CT (computed tomography) images distorted due to a metal artifact and to evaluate the usefulness when proton therapy plan was plan using the images on which IMAR algorithm was applied. Materials and Methods: We used a CT simulator to capture the images when metal was not inserted in the CIRS model 062 Phantom and when metal was inserted in it and Artifact occurred. We compared the differences in the CT numbers from the images without metal, with a metal artifact, and with IMAR algorithm by setting ROI 1 and ROI 2 at the same position in the phantom. In addition, CT numbers of the tissue equivalents located near the metal were compared. For the evaluation of Rando Phantom, CT was taken by inserting a titanium rod into the spinal region of the Rando phantom modelling a patient who underwent spinal implant surgery. In addition, the same proton therapy plan was established for each image, and the differences in Range at three sites were compared. Results: In the evaluation of CIRS Phantom, the CT numbers were -6.5 HU at ROI 1 and -10.5 HU at ROI 2 in the absence of metal. In the presence of metal, Fe, Ti, and W were -148.1, -45.1 and -151.7 HU at ROI 1, respectively, and when the IMAR algorithm was applied, it increased to -0.9, -2.0, -1.9 HU. In the presence of metal, they were 171.8, 63.9 and 177.0 HU at ROI 2 and after the application of IMAR algorithm they decreased to 10.0 6,7 and 8.1 HU. The CT numbers of the tissue equivalents were corrected close to the original CT numbers except those in the lung located farthest. In the evaluation of the Rando Phantom, the mean CT numbers were 9.9, -202.8, and 35.1 HU at ROI 1, and 9.0, 107.1, and 29 HU at ROI 2 in the absence, presence of metal, and in the application of IMAR algorithm. The difference between the absence of metal and the range of proton beam in the therapy was reduced on the average by 0.26 cm at point 1, 0.20 cm at point 2, and 0.12 cm at point 3 when the IMAR algorithm was applied. Conclusion: By applying the IMAR algorithm, the CT numbers were corrected close to the original ones obtained in the absence of metal. In the beam profile of the proton therapy, the difference in Range after applying the IMAR algorithm was reduced by 0.01 to 3.6 mm. There were slight differences as compared to the images absence of metal but it was thought that the application of the IMAR algorithm could result in less error compared with the conventional therapy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Radiology
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.389-395
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• 2018

The study attempted to use computed tomography images to determine the usefulness of the reduction in the axial reduction algorithm in the event of a metallic artifacts reduction in the image of the beam-hardening effect, which is known as the most effective method of reducing metallic artifact reduction in the image and the reduction of the metal produced in this study. As a result, the result is increased to 140 kVp to reduce the value of the CT value by 0.02 to 0.05 %, resulting in decreased axial effect (P > 0.05). The CT value decreased from 12.4 to 26.9 % when applied to the reduction of the metallic. 12.4 to 26.9 % (p<0.05). In addition, in the qualitative assessment by the clinical trial evaluation, it was assessed as 1.8 points after applying the MAR algorithm, In the resolution of resolution and contrast evaluations, the estimation of the decrease in metallic artifact effects was assessed as the metal was assessed to be scored 7.2 points after the MAR algorithm was evaluated. Therefore, in case of artifacts due to irreversible beam hardening effect, it is useful to reduce artifacts caused by beam hardening effect by using various methods derived from existing researches and scanning by applying the metal artifact reduction algorithm proposed in this experiment.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.41 no.3
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• pp.111-120
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• 2004

This paper proposes a vector error diffusion method for smear artifact reduction in the boundary region. This artifact mainly results from a large accumulation of quantization errors. In particular, color bands with a smear artifact, the width of a few pixels appear along the edges. Accordingly, to reduce this artifact, the proposed halftoning process excludes the large accumulated Quantization error by comparing the vector norms and vector angles between the error-corrected vector and eight primary color patches. When the vector norm of the error corrected vector is larger than those of eight primary color patches, the quantization error vector is excluded from the quantization error distribution process. In addition, the quantization error is also excluded when the angle between eight primary color patches and error corrected vector is large. As a result, the proposed method enables a visually pleasing halftone pattern to be generated by all three color separations into account in a device- independent color space and reduces smear artifact in the boundary regions.

• ETRI Journal
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.415-425
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• 2019

Generative adversarial networks (GAN) have been successfully used in many image restoration tasks, including image denoising, super-resolution, and compression artifact reduction. By fully exploiting its characteristics, state-of-the-art image restoration techniques can be used to generate images with photorealistic details. However, there are many applications that require faithful rather than visually appealing image reconstruction, such as medical imaging, surveillance, and video coding. We found that previous GAN-training methods that used a loss function in the form of a weighted sum of fidelity and adversarial loss fails to reduce fidelity loss. This results in non-negligible degradation of the objective image quality, including peak signal-to-noise ratio. Our approach is to alternate between fidelity and adversarial loss in a way that the minimization of adversarial loss does not deteriorate the fidelity. Experimental results on compression-artifact reduction and super-resolution tasks show that the proposed method can perform faithful and photorealistic image restoration.

• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.8 no.6
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• pp.462-467
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• 2002

A new approach for reducing the blocking artifact is proposed in this paper. This method can be applied to conventional transform coding, without introducing additional information or significant blurring. Main drawbacks of the Discrete Cosine Transform(DCT) are visible block boundaries due to coarse quantization of the coefficients. Therefore, restoration techniques result in unnecessary blurring of the image. The proposed deblocking algorithm is based on the heuristic approach for edge detection. All edges of the standard still images are categorized, and the best edges are selected. Several images are used fer experiments, and several other previous algorithms are compared with the proposed approach. The results show that the proposed algorithm works better than those of other previous researches. This algorithm can be used for JPEG, MPEG, and H.261 standard images.

• Current Optics and Photonics
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• v.4 no.3
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• pp.200-209
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• 2020

We describe an approach that uses a bilateral filter to reduce the ringing artifact in motion-blurred restoration image. It takes into account the specific physical structure of the ringing artifact combined with the properties of the human visual system. To properly reduce the ringing artifact, each of the adjacent pixels is limited in a straight line which has a given direction. To protect the edges and the texture regions of an image, our algorithm divides the image into texture regions and flat regions, and the artifact reduction algorithm is only applied to the flat region. Finally, we use 8 typical images and 5 objective quality evaluation indices to evaluate our algorithm. Experimental results show that our algorithm can obtain better results in subjective visual effect and in objective image quality evaluation.

• Proceedings of the KIEE Conference
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• 2000.07d
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• pp.2921-2923
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• 2000

Adaptive template filtering has been proposed recently for an enhancement of signal-to-noise ratio. In some magnetic resonance images whose gray levels have relatively small dynamic ranges, e.g., T1 imaging, however, artificial stair-like artifact is observed in edge regions. This is partially due to edge enhancement effect in such voxels that contain multiple compounds at the boundaries of tissues. The gray levels of these voxels tend to change those of near voxels that contain single compound by the adaptive filtering, which exaggerate edge discontinuities. In this paper, we propose a technique to eliminate such artifact by identifying those voxels and assigning a larger template for them. Filtered images with the proposed technique show substantial visual enhancement at the edges without degradation of peak signal-to-noise ratio compared to the original adaptive template filtering for both magnetic resonance images and phantom images

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Communications and Information Sciences
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• v.27 no.6A
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• pp.584-591
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• 2002

In this paper, we proposed a b1ocking artifact reduction algorithm using similarity and linear combination between blocks. In the proposed method, all of the blocks are classified into low frequency block and high frequency block according to the their DCT coefficients. And we defined range block which shows blocking artifacts, as block centered to block boundary and defied domain block as similar block with range block within search range. In the search procedure, we used sub-block's property of range block and similarity for more accurate searching. Finally blocking artifact reduction algorithm is performed using linear combination between searched domain block and blocky range block. The performance of the proposed method is investigated by computer simulation in comparison with the traditional methods. In the experimental results, Ire confirmed the better performance in the subjective by 0.04∼0.4 dB and objective image quality.

• Journal of the Institute of Electronics Engineers of Korea SP
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• v.48 no.4
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• pp.1-11
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• 2011

In order to obtain more clear x-ray images, an antiscatter grid, which can absorb the scattered rays, is employed. The artifacts due to the grid pattern are, however, visible, and thus should be removed by employing digital filters. For over exposed x-ray images, the strength of the grid artifacts are too big to be removed if fixed-bandwidth filters are employed. In this paper, for an efficient grid artifact reduction, we analyze the characteristics of the image formation and image saturation as the x-ray exposure increases. We can notice that, as the saturation begins to occur, the maximum of the artifact component decreases contrary to increasing exposure amount. We propose then an adaptive filtering algorithm for reduction of the grid artifacts, where the significant-signal bandwidth of the artifact component is used to choose appropriate filter bandwidths. The proposed algorithm is tested for real x-ray digital images, and can efficiently remove the grid artifacts.