Adaptive Gaussian Wiener Filter for CT-Scan Images with Gaussian Noise Variance

Main Article Content

Kai Liang Lew
Chung Yang Kew
Kok Swee Sim
Shing Chiang Tan

Abstract

Medical imaging plays an important role in modern healthcare, with Computed Tomography (CT) being essential for high-resolution cross-sectional imaging. However, Gaussian noise often occurs within the CT scan images and makes it difficult for image interpretation and reduces the diagnostic accuracy, creating a significant obstacle to fully utilizing CT scanning technology. Existing denoising techniques have a hard time balance between noise reduction and preserving the important image details, failing to enable the optimal diagnostic precision. This study introduces Adaptive Gaussian Wiener Filter (AGWF), a novel filter aims to denoise CT scan images that have been corrupted with various Gaussian noise variance without compromising the image details. The AGWF combines the Gaussian filter for initial noise reduction, followed by the implementation of Wiener filter, which can adaptively estimate noise variance and signal power in localized regions. This approach not only outperforms other existing techniques but also showcases a remarkable balance between noise reduction and image detail preservation. The experiment evaluates 300 images from the dataset and each image is corrupted with Gaussian noise variance to ensure a comprehensive evaluation of the AGWF’s performance. The evaluation indicated that AGWF can improve the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) value and reduce the Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Mean Square Error (MSE) value, showing a qualitative improvement in CT scan imagery. The proposed method holds promising potential for advancing medical imaging technology with the implementation of deep learning.

Article Details

Section
Articles

References

E. N. Landis and D. T. Keane, “X-ray microtomography,” Mater. Charact., vol. 61, no. 12, pp. 1305–1316, 2010, doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matchar.2010.09.012.

A. Aldawood, I. Hoteit, and T. Alkhalifah, “The possibilities of compressed-sensing-based Kirchhoff prestack migration,” Geophysics, vol. 79, no. 3, pp. S113–S120, 2014, doi: 10.1190/GEO2013-0271.1.

S. Kuanar, V. Athitsos, D. Mahapatra, K. R. Rao, Z. Akhtar, and D. Dasgupta, “Low Dose Abdominal Ct Image Reconstruction: An Unsupervised Learning Based Approach,” 2019 IEEE Int. Conf. Image Process., pp. 1351–1355, 2019.

L. Wang, P. A. Fayolle, and A. G. Belyaev, “Reverse image filtering with clean and noisy filters,” Signal, Image Video Process., vol. 17, no. 2, pp. 333–341, 2023, doi: 10.1007/s11760-022-02236-w.

D. Palahin, E. Palahina, and V. Palahin, “Development of Methods for Image Filtering in Noise and their Implementation for a Web Service,” Res. Sq., 2023, doi: https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-2203260/v1.

I. Petras, “Novel low-pass two-dimensional Mittag-Leffler filter and its application in image processing,” TechRxiv, pp. 1–5, 2023, doi: https://doi.org/10.36227/techrxiv.23522907.v1.

M. Tabuchi and N. Yamane, “Denoising X-ray CT images based on product Gaussian mixture distribution models for original and noise images,” IEEE Reg. 10 Annu. Int. Conf. Proceedings/TENCON, no. May, pp. 1679–1684, 2010, doi: 10.1109/TENCON.2010.5686039.

J. Portilla, V. Strela, M. J. Wainwright, and E. P. Simoncelli, “Adaptive Wiener Denoising Using a Gaussian Scale Mixture Model In The Wavelet Domain,” in Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Image Processing, 2001, pp. 1–4.

R. A. Young, “The Gaussian derivative model for spatial vision: I. Retinal mechanisms,” Spat. Vis., vol. 2, no. 4, pp. 273–293, 1987, doi: 10.1163/156856887X00222.

M. Kumar, S. K. Mishra, and S. S. Sahu, “Cat Swarm Optimization Based Functional Link Artificial Neural Network Filter for Gaussian Noise Removal from Computed Tomography Images,” Appl. Comput. Intell. Soft Comput., vol. 2016, pp. 1–6, 2016, doi: 10.1155/2016/6304915.

R. Mayasari and N. Heryana, “Reduce Noise in Computed Tomography Image using Adaptive Gaussian Filter,” Int. J. Comput. Tech., vol. 6, no. 1, pp. 17–20, 2019, [Online]. Available: http://arxiv.org/abs/1902.05985

K. S. Sim, K. K. Law, and C. P. Tso, “Mixed lagrange time delay estimation autoregressive Wiener filter application for real-time SEM image enhancement,” Microsc. Res. Tech., vol. 70, no. 11, pp. 919–927, Nov. 2007, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jemt.20490.

M. A. KIANI, K. S. SIM, M. E. NIA, and C. P. TSO, “Signal-to-noise ratio enhancement on SEM images using a cubic spline interpolation with Savitzky–Golay filters and weighted least squares error,” J. Microsc., vol. 258, no. 2, pp. 140–150, May 2015, doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/jmi.12227.

W. T. Chan, K. S. Sim, and F. S. Abas, “Pixel filtering and reallocation with histograms of second-order derivatives of pixel values for electron microscope images,” Int. J. Innov. Comput. Inf. Control, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 915–928, 2018.

C. K. Toa, K. S. Sim, Z. Y. Lim, and C. P. Lim, “Magnetic resonance imaging noise filtering using adaptive polynomial-fit non-local means,” Eng. Lett., vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 527–540, 2019.

Z. X. Yeap, K. S. Sim, and C. P. Tso, “Adaptive tuning piecewise cubic Hermite interpolation with Wiener filter in wavelet domain for scanning electron microscope images,” Microsc. Res. Tech., vol. 82, no. 4, pp. 402–414, Apr. 2019, doi: https://doi.org/10.1002/jemt.23181.

T. L. Tan, K. S. Sim, C. K. Tan, and A. K. Chong, “CT image enhancement by colorization for brain infarct detection,” Proc. 2011 Int. Conf. Image Process. Comput. Vision, Pattern Recognition, IPCV 2011, vol. 2, no. January, pp. 1030–1034, 2011.

S. S. Majeeth and C. N. K. Babu, “Gaussian Noise Removal in an Image using Fast Guided Filter and its Method Noise Thresholding in Medical Healthcare Application,” J. Med. Syst., vol. 43, no. 8, 2019, doi: 10.1007/s10916-019-1376-4.

P. Kowalski and R. Smyk, “Review and comparison of smoothing algorithms for one-dimensional data noise reduction,” 2018 Int. Interdiscip. PhD Work. IIPhDW 2018, pp. 277–281, 2018, doi: 10.1109/IIPHDW.2018.8388373.

M. Mafi, H. Martin, M. Cabrerizo, J. Andrian, A. Barreto, and M. Adjouadi, “A comprehensive survey on impulse and Gaussian denoising filters for digital images,” Signal Processing, vol. 157, pp. 236–260, 2019, doi: 10.1016/j.sigpro.2018.12.006.

F. Baselice, G. Ferraioli, M. Ambrosanio, V. Pascazio, and G. Schirinzi, “Enhanced Wiener filter for ultrasound image restoration,” Comput. Methods Programs Biomed., vol. 153, pp. 71–81, 2018, doi: 10.1016/j.cmpb.2017.10.006.

L. Petkova and I. Draganov, “Noise Adaptive Wiener Filtering of Images,” 2020 55th Int. Sci. Conf. Information, Commun. Energy Syst. Technol. ICEST 2020 - Proc., pp. 177–180, 2020, doi: 10.1109/ICEST49890.2020.9232887.

Z. M. Ramadan, “Effect of kernel size on Wiener and Gaussian image filtering,” Telkomnika (Telecommunication Comput. Electron. Control., vol. 17, no. 3, pp. 1455–1460, 2019, doi: 10.12928/TELKOMNIKA.v17i3.11192.

J. Wei, S. Ou, S. Shen, and Y. Gao, “Laplacian-Gaussian mixture based dual-gain wiener filter for speech enhancement,” 2016 IEEE Int. Conf. Signal Image Process. ICSIP 2016, pp. 543–547, 2017, doi: 10.1109/SIPROCESS.2016.7888321.

S. Peng and L. Lucke, “Hybrid filter for image enhancement,” IEEE Int. Conf. Image Process., vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 163–166, 1996, doi: 10.47893/ijipvs.2012.1008.

T. D. Pham, “Estimating Parameters of Optimal Average and Adaptive Wiener Filters for Image Restoration with Sequential Gaussian Simulation,” IEEE Signal Process. Lett., vol. 22, no. 11, pp. 1950–1954, 2015, doi: 10.1109/LSP.2015.2448732.

A. A. Omer, O. I. Hassan, A. I. Ahmed, and A. Abdelrahman, “Denoising CT Images using Median based Filters: A Review,” 2018 Int. Conf. Comput. Control. Electr. Electron. Eng. ICCCEEE 2018, pp. 1–6, 2018, doi: 10.1109/ICCCEEE.2018.8515829.

J. Chen, Y. Zhan, and H. Cao, “Adaptive Sequentially Weighted Median Filter for Image Highly Corrupted by Impulse Noise,” IEEE Access, vol. 7, no. i, pp. 158545–158556, 2019, doi: 10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2950348.

L. Cadena, A. Zotin, F. Cadena, A. Korneeva, A. Legalov, and B. Morales, “Noise reduction techniques for processing of medical images,” Lect. Notes Eng. Comput. Sci., vol. 2229, pp. 496–500, 2017.

A. Jain and V. Bhateja, “A Versatile Denoising Method for Images Contaminated with Gaussian Noise,” in Proceedings of the CUBE International Information Technology Conference, 2012, pp. 65–68. doi: 10.1145/2381716.2381730.

A. Ampavathi and V. S. T, “Research challenges and future directions towards medical data processing,” Comput. Methods Biomech. Biomed. Eng. Imaging Vis., vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 633–652, Nov. 2022, doi: 10.1080/21681163.2021.2018665.

“DICOM Library.” https://www.dicomlibrary.com/

K. S. Sim, V. Teh, and M. E. Nia, “Adaptive noise Wiener filter for scanning electron microscope imaging system.,” Scanning, vol. 38, no. 2, pp. 148–163, 2016, doi: 10.1002/sca.21250.