• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.462-470
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• 2020

Objective: To demonstrate that human visual illusion can contribute to sub-endocardial dark rim artifact in contrast-enhanced myocardial perfusion magnetic resonance images. Materials and Methods: Numerical phantoms were generated to simulate the first-passage of contrast agent in the heart, and rendered in conventional gray scale as well as in color scale with reduced luminance variation. Cardiac perfusion images were acquired from two healthy volunteers, and were displayed by the same gray and color scales used in the numerical study. Before and after k-space windowing, the left ventricle (LV)-myocardium boarders were analyzed visually and quantitatively through intensity profiles perpendicular the boarders. Results: k-space windowing yielded monotonically decreasing signal intensity near the LV-myocardium boarder in the phantom images, as confirmed by negative finite difference values near the board ranging -1.07 to -0.14. However, the dark band still appears, which is perceived by visual illusion. Dark rim is perceived in the in-vivo images after k-space windowing that removed the quantitative signal dip, suggesting that the perceived dark rim is a visual illusion. The perceived dark rim is stronger at peak LV enhancement than the peak myocardial enhancement, due to the larger intensity difference between LV and myocardium. In both numerical phantom and in-vivo images, the illusory dark band is not visible in the color map due to reduced luminance variation. Conclusion: Visual illusion is another potential cause of dark rim artifact in contrast-enhanced myocardial perfusion MRI as demonstrated by illusory rim perceived in the absence of quantitative intensity undershoot.

• Korean Journal of Radiology
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• v.25 no.4
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• pp.384-394
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• 2024

Objective: To evaluate the image quality of novel dark-blood computed tomography angiography (CTA) imaging combined with deep learning reconstruction (DLR) compared to delayed-phase CTA images with hybrid iterative reconstruction (HIR), to visualize the cervical artery wall in patients with Takayasu arteritis (TAK). Materials and Methods: This prospective study continuously recruited 53 patients with TAK (mean age: 33.8 ± 10.2 years; 49 females) between January and July 2022 who underwent head-neck CTA scans. The arterial- and delayed-phase images were reconstructed using HIR and DLR. Subtracted images of the arterial-phase from the delayed-phase were then added to the original delayed-phase using a denoising filter to generate the final-dark-blood images. Qualitative image quality scores and quantitative parameters were obtained and compared among the three groups of images: Delayed-HIR, Dark-blood-HIR, and Dark-blood-DLR. Results: Compared to Delayed-HIR, Dark-blood-HIR images demonstrated higher qualitative scores in terms of vascular wall visualization and diagnostic confidence index (all P < 0.001). These qualitative scores further improved after applying DLR (Dark-blood-DLR compared to Dark-blood-HIR, all P < 0.001). Dark-blood DLR also showed higher scores for overall image noise than Dark-blood-HIR (P < 0.001). In the quantitative analysis, the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR) values between the vessel wall and lumen for the bilateral common carotid arteries and brachiocephalic trunk were significantly higher on Dark-blood-HIR images than on Delayed-HIR images (all P < 0.05). The CNR values were significantly higher for Dark-blood-DLR than for Dark-blood-HIR in all cervical arteries (all P < 0.001). Conclusion: Compared with Delayed-HIR CTA, the dark-blood method combined with DLR improved CTA image quality and enhanced visualization of the cervical artery wall in patients with TAK.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.80-84
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• 2014

Dark channel prior means that, for undistorted outdoor images, at least one color channel of a pixel or its neighbors have values close to 0, and thus the prior can be used to estimate the amount of distortion for given distorted images. In other words, if an image is distorted by blur, its dark channel values are averaged with neighbor pixel values and thus increase. This paper proposes a method that estimates blur strengths by analyzing the variation of dark channel values caused by blur. Through experiments with images distorted by Gaussian and horizontal motion blur with given strengths, the usefulness of the proposed method is verified.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.2529-2543
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• 2019

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) image can link with the microscopic world through reflecting interaction between electrons and materials. The SEM images are easily subject to blurring distortions during the imaging process. Inspired by the fact that dark channel prior captures the changes to blurred SEM images caused by the blur process, we propose a method to evaluate the SEM images sharpness based on the dark channel prior. A SEM image database is first established with mean opinion score collected as ground truth. For the quality assessment of the SEM image, the dark channel map is generated. Since blurring is typically characterized by the spread of edge, edge of dark channel map is extracted. Then noise is removed by an edge-preserving filter. Finally, the maximum gradient and the average gradient of image are combined to generate the final sharpness score. The experimental results on the SEM blurred image database show that the proposed algorithm outperforms both the existing state-of-the-art image sharpness metrics and the general-purpose no-reference quality metrics.

• Proceedings of the KSRS Conference
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• 1999.11a
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• pp.310-315
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• 1999

We extracted narrow open water streams from JERS-1 SAR images of the Amazon rain forest. The extracted range of these streams were almost comparable to a high level extraction of the same streams from near-IR images of JERS-1 VNIR data notwithstanding that these features in SAR images show the strong dependence of the observation angle. Large water bodies are relatively easy to extract from JERS-1 SAR images, as they tend to appear as very dark areas; but streams whose width is nearly equal to or less than the spatial resolution no longer appear as very dark features. By using strong scatterers distributed sparsely along the radar facing sides of the streams, we can successfully estimate approximate ranges of waterways and then extract relatively dark line-like features within these ranges.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.229-234
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• 2020

Dehazing significantly improves image quality by restoring the loss of contrast and color saturation for images taken in the presence. However, when applied to images not taken according to the prior information, dehazing can cause unintended degradation of image quality. To avoid unintended degradations, we present a hazy scene detection algorithm using a single image based on the distributions of hue, saturation, and dark channel. Through a heuristic approach, we find out statistical characteristics of the distribution of hue, saturation, and dark channels in the hazy scene and make a detection model using them. The proposed method can precede the dehazing to prevent unintended degradation. The detection performance evaluated with a set of test images shows a high hit rate with a low false alarm ratio. Ultimately the proposed method can be used to control the effect of dehazing so that the dehazing can be applied to wide variety of images without unintended degradation of image quality.

• Archives of design research
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.327-336
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• 2002

This paper is intended to help cool-skin-colored people to choose suitable clothing colors confidently and look well-dressed and to make positive self-images. A pseudo-experimental method has made it possible to analyze the visual evaluations of clothing color images for cool-skin-colored people and obtain the following results. 1. Reddish colors of vivid tone for doffing give positive images and those of dull and dark tone, negative ones. 2. Yellowish colors of vivid and bright tone for doffing show positive images and those of dull and dark tone, negative ones. Cool yellow of light tone proves to contribute to a well-looking image. 3. Warm green of vivid and deep tone, and cool green of vivid tone for clothing present positive images. 4. Warm blue of vivid and deep tone, and cool blue of vivid and bright lone make positive images. Either blue with dull tone gives a negative image. 5. Purple colors whose tone is vivid, deep and light contribute to positive images, and those of dull tone, negative ones.

• KSII Transactions on Internet and Information Systems (TIIS)
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• v.15 no.8
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• pp.2749-2763
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• 2021

The desirable result of infrared (IR) and visible (VIS) image fusion should have textural details from VIS images and salient targets from IR images. However, detail information in the dark regions of VIS image has low contrast and blurry edges, resulting in performance degradation in image fusion. To resolve the troubles of fuzzy details in dark regions of VIS image fusion, we have proposed a method of reflectance estimation for IR and VIS image fusion. In order to maintain and enhance details in these dark regions, dark region approximation (DRA) is proposed to optimize the Retinex model. With the improved Retinex model based on DRA, quasi-Newton method is adopted to estimate the reflectance of a VIS image. The final fusion outcome is obtained by fusing the DRA-based reflectance of VIS image with IR image. Our method could simultaneously retain the low visibility details in VIS images and the high contrast targets in IR images. Experiment statistic shows that compared to some advanced approaches, the proposed method has superiority on detail preservation and visual quality.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aeronautical & Space Sciences
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• v.44 no.1
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• pp.33-39
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• 2016

Color image dehazing techniques have been extensively studied, and especially the dark channel prior (DCP)-based method has been widely used. Near infrared (NIR) image based applications are also widespread; however, NIR image-specific dehazing techniques have not attracted great interest. In this paper, the characteristics of NIR images are analyzed and compared with the color images' characteristics. The conventional color image dehazing method is also applied to NIR images to understand its effectiveness on different frequency-band signals. Furthermore, we modify the DCP method considering the characteristics of NIR images and show that our proposed method results in improved dehazed NIR images.

• Investigative Magnetic Resonance Imaging
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• v.6 no.1
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• pp.21-27
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• 2002

Purpose : To evaluate diffusion-weighted imaging findings of intracerebral hematoma according to the time sequence. Materials and methods : Seventeen patients with intracerebral hematoma were studied. Diffusion weighted images using 1.5 tesla MRI machine were obtained with b-value of $1000{\;}sec/\textrm{mm}^2$. The patients were grouped as hyperacute stage(within 12 hours, 5 patients), acute stage(within 3 days, 4 patients), subacute stage(within 3 weeks, 4 patients), and chronic stage(after 3 weeks,4 patients). The signal intensities were analysed as bright, high, iso, low and dark at the central and peripheral portions of the hematoma in each stage, and compared with those of T2 and T1 weighted images. Results : The signal intensities of the central and peripheral portion of the intracerebral hematoma on diffusion-weighted images were high and dark in hyperacute stage, dark and high-bright in acute stage, and high-bright and dark in subacute and chronic stages. The patterns of signal change of hematoma on diffusion-weighted image according to the time sequence were similar to those on T2-weighted image, but changed early and prominently. Conclusion : The intracerebral hematoma on diffusion-weighted image showed unique central and peripheral signal intensity according to the time sequence. Central portions show high to bright signals in hyperacute, subacute and chronic stage, and dark signal in acute stage, and peripheral portions show dark signals in hyperacute, subacute and chronic stage, and high to bright signal in acute stage.