• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.55-63
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• 2005

A novel imaging system for High-resolution Ultrasonic Transmission Tomography (HUTT) and soft tissue differentiation methodology for the HUTT system are presented. The critical innovation of the HUTT system includes the use of sub-millimeter transducer elements for both transmitter and receiver arrays and multi-band analysis of the first-arrival pulse. The first-arrival pulse is detected and extracted from the received signal (i.e., snippet) at each azimuthal and angular location of a mechanical tomographic scanner in transmission mode. Each extracted snippet is processed to yield a multi-spectral vector of attenuation values at multiple frequency bands. These vectors form a 3-D sinogram representing a multi-spectral augmentation of the conventional 2-D sinogram. A filtered backprojection algorithm is used to reconstruct a stack of multi-spectral images for each 2-D tomographic slice that allow tissue characterization. A novel methodology for soft tissue differentiation using spectral target detection is presented. The representative 2-D and 3-D HUTT images formed at various frequency bands demonstrate the high-resolution capability of the system. It is shown that spherical objects with diameter down to 0.3㎜ can be detected. In addition, the results of soft tissue differentiation and characterization demonstrate the feasibility of quantitative soft tissue analysis for possible detection of lesions or cancerous tissue.

• The Korean Journal of Nuclear Medicine
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.414-424
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• 1998

Purpose: Cross-modality coregistration of positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MR) could enhance the clinical information. In this study we propose a refined technique to improve the robustness of registration, and to implement more realistic visualization of the coregistered images. Materials and Methods: Using the sinogram of PET emission scan, we extracted the robust head boundary and used boundary-enhanced PET to coregister PET with MR. The pixels having 10% of maximum pixel value were considered as the boundary of sinogram. Boundary pixel values were exchanged with maximum value of sinogram. One hundred eighty boundary points were extracted at intervals of about 2 degree using simple threshold method from each slice of MR images. Best affined transformation between the two point sets was performed using least square fitting which should minimize the sum of Euclidean distance between the point sets. We reduced calculation time using pre-defined distance map. Finally we developed an automatic coregistration program using this boundary detection and surface matching technique. We designed a new weighted normalization technique to display the coregistered PET and MR images simultaneously. Results: Using our newly developed method, robust extraction of head boundary was possible and spatial registration was successfully performed. Mean displacement error was less than 2.0 mm. In visualization of coregistered images using weighted normalization method, structures shown in MR image could be realistically represented. Conclusion: Our refined technique could practically enhance the performance of automated three dimensional coregistration.

• KIPS Transactions on Software and Data Engineering
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• v.7 no.10
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• pp.377-382
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• 2018

This study deals with internal state and tissue density analysis methods for red ginseng grade determination. For internal measurement of red ginseng, there have been various studies on nondestructive testing methods since the 1990s, It was difficult to grasp the most important inner hole and inside whites in the grading. So in this study, we developed a closed capturing device for infra-red illumination environment, and developed an internal measurement system that can detect the presence and diameter of inner hole and inside whites. Made devices consisted of infrared lights with a high transmission rate of red ginseng in 920 nanometer wave band, a infra-red camera and a Y axis actuator with a red ginseng automatically controlled focus on the camera. The proposed algorithm performs an auto-focus system on the Y-axis actuator to automatically adjust the sharp focus of the object according to the size and thickness. Then red ginseng is rotated $360^{\circ}$ at $1^{\circ}$ intervals and 360 total images are acquired, and reconstructed as a sinogram through Radon transform and Back-projection algorithm was performed to acquire internal images of red ginseng. As a result of the algorithm, it was possible to acquire internal cross-sectional image regardless of the thickness and shape of red ginseng. In the future, if more than 10,000 different shapes and sizes of red ginseng internal cross-sectional image are acquired and the classification criterion is applied, it can be used as a reliable automated ginseng grade automatic measurement method.

• Journal of radiological science and technology
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• v.33 no.4
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• pp.369-378
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate image differences between KVCT vs MVCT depending on a high densities metal included in the phantom and to analyze the r values for the purpose of the dose differences between each methods. We verified the possibilities for clinical indications that using MVCT is available for the radiation therapy treatment planning. Cheese phantom was used to get a density table for each CT and CT sinogram data was transferred to radiation planning computer through DICOM_RT. Using this data, the treatment dose plan has been calculated in RTP system. We compared the differences of r values between calculated and measured values, and then applied this data to the real patient's treatment planning. The contrast of MVCT image was superior to KVCT. In KVCT, each pixel which has more than 3.0 of density was difficult to be differentiated, but in MVCT, more than 5.0 density of pixels were distinguished clearly. With the normal phantom, the percentage of the case which has less than 1($r\leq1$, acceptable criteria) of gamma value, was 94.92% for KVCT and 93.87% for MVCT. But with the cheese phantom, which has high density plug, the percentage was 88.25% for KVCT and 93.77% for MVCT respectively. MVCT has many advantages than KVCT. Especially, when the patient has high density metal, such as total hip arthroplasty, MVCT is more efficient to define the anatomical structure around the high density implants without any artifacts. MVCT helps to calculate the treatment dose more accurately.

• The Transactions of The Korean Institute of Electrical Engineers
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• v.63 no.7
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• pp.1001-1007
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• 2014

This paper proposes a method to reduce operation time using discrete cosine transform and to improve image quality by the DC gain correction. Conventional filtered back projection (FBP) filtering in the frequency domain using Fourier transform, but the filtering process uses complex number operations. To simplify the filtering process, we propose a filtering process using discrete cosine transform. In addition, the image quality of reconstructed images are improved by correcting DC gain of sinograms. To correct the DC gain, we propose to find an optimum DC weight is defined as the ratio of sinogram DC and optimum DC. Experimental results show that the proposed method gets better performance than the conventional method for phantom and clinical CT images.

• Communications for Statistical Applications and Methods
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• v.8 no.1
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• pp.299-309
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• 2001

In PET(Positron Emission Tomography), it is necessary to use transmission scan data in order to estimate the attenuation map. Recently, there are several empirical studies in which one might be able to estimate attenuation map and activity distribution simultaneously with emissive sinogram alone without transmission scan. However, their algorithms are based on the model in which does not include the background counts term, and so is unrealistic. If the background counts component has been included in the model, their algorithm would introduce non-monotonic reconstruction algorithm which results in vain in practice. in this paper, we develop a monotonic and parallelizable algorithm for simultaneous reconstruction of both characteristics and present the validity through some simulations.

• IEIE Transactions on Smart Processing and Computing
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.203-207
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• 2013

The appropriate handling of motion artifacts is essential for clinical diagnosis in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). In many cases, motion is an inherent part of MR images because it is difficult to control during MR imaging. As the motion in the human body occur in a deformable manner, they are difficult to deal with. This paper proposes a novel detection method for periodically moving regions to produce MR images with less motion artifacts. When the data is acquired by the radial trajectory, the proposed method can extract the deformable region easily using the difference in the modulated sinograms, which have different periodic phase terms. The simulation results applied to the various cases confirmed the good performance of the proposed method.

• Progress in Medical Physics
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• v.24 no.4
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• pp.303-314
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• 2013

Image quality of computed tomography (CT) is very vulnerable to metal artifacts. Recently, the thickness and background normalization techniques have been introduced. Since they provide flat sinograms, it is easy to determine metal traces and a simple linear interpolation would be enough to describe the missing data in sinograms. In this study, we have developed a theory describing two normalization methods and compared two methods with respect to various sizes and numbers of metal inserts by using simple numerical simulations. The developed theory showed that the background normalization provide flatter sinograms than the thickness normalization, which was validated with the simulation results. Numerical simulation results with respect to various sizes and numbers of metal inserts showed that the background normalization was better than the thickness normalization for metal artifact corrections. Although the residual artifacts still existed, we have showed that the background normalization without the segmentation procedure was better than the thickness normalization for metal artifact corrections. Since the background normalization without the segmentation procedure is simple and it does not require any users' intervention, it can be readily installed in conventional CT systems.

• Proceedings of the KOSOMBE Conference
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• v.1996 no.11
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• pp.310-313
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• 1996

In this study, we developed three dimensional FDG brain PET and MRI coregistration technique. The boundaries of the head in PET and MRI were segmented using sinogram of emission PET scan and T1-weighted MRI. We registered both boundaries by minimizing the mean Euclidean distance of those. To display the registered PET and MRI simultaneously, we used weighted normalization method and interleaving method.

• Proceedings of the Korea Information Processing Society Conference
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• 2017.04a
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• pp.573-576
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• 2017

본 연구는 홍삼 등급판정 과정에서 내부 조직 치밀도 분석을 위해 의료 영상 분석 방법을 이용하여 적외선 영상 측정기기를 개발하였다. 기존 홍삼 내부분석방법은 수동으로 암실환경에서 강한 조명을 홍삼에 투과하여 사람 눈으로 직접 판별하는 과정을 거친다. 이러한 기존 검사 과정은 작업 비효율성과 불균일한 검사기준으로 제품 품질 신뢰도 저하의 단점을 가져온다. 이러한 문제점을 해결하기 위해 본 연구는 적외선 조명환경에서 자동 측정이 가능한 홍삼 내부 측정기기를 개발하였다. 개발된 장치는 홍삼의 빛 투과 특성을 응용한 920nm 파장대역의 적외선 조명기구, 조명 제어회로, 적외선 대역 촬영이 가능한 영상 측정 카메라 장치, $0.9^{\circ}$의 간격으로 $360^{\circ}$ 홍삼 영상취득이 가능한 회전 엑츄에이터로 구성이 된다. 본 연구에서 제안 하는 홍삼 단층 영상분석 방법은, 홍삼을 $0.9^{\circ}$ 간격으로 회전시키어 $360^{\circ}$ 홍삼 내부영상을 취득하여 라돈 변환(Radon transform)을 통해 사이노그램(Sinogram)으로 재구성 하였으며, 역 라돈 변환(Inverse Radon transform)을 통해 단층 영상복원(Back-projection)알고리즘을 구현하였다. 이 결과 홍삼을 절단하지 않고 홍삼 내부 단면영상 획득이 가능하였으며 내공(內空), 내백(內白)의 유무를 판단하고 직경을 파악할 수 있었다. 이를 토대로 등급 판별 공식을 산출하면 신뢰성 있는 홍삼 등급 자동화 측정기기를 개발할 수 있을 것으로 기대된다.