Medical Image Processing Using Optical Fourier Technique

描述（由申请人提供）：该提案的最终目标是开发一种低成本，坚固耐用的便携式全光学医学图像处理系统，用于乳房x光检查乳腺癌诊断。从并行处理的角度来看，光学图像处理技术具有固有的快速性。在过去的十年里，这个实验室参与了所有用于图像处理的光学傅里叶变换和小波变换的创新技术。利用细菌视紫红质薄膜的光致二色性，对自适应光学傅里叶处理系统进行了实验验证，并在实时降噪、边缘增强和带通滤波中得到了应用。应用这些强大的技术来增强医学图像是这个项目的目标。三次乳房x光检查的初步结果证明了这种方法的可行性。通过玩弄一个旋钮（旋转光学系统中的分析仪），可以选择性地显示微钙化簇或周围的致密组织。该技术速度快，乳房x光片的扫描速率仅受CCD相机帧速率的限制。提出了一种采用电子光接口的集成体系结构。乳房x光片和幻象的模拟图像将首先进行研究。商业上可用的标准和定制设计的对象将用于彻底的对比细节分析。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The ultimate goal of the proposal is to develop a low cost rugged portable all optical medical image processing system for breast cancer diagnostics with mammograms. Optical image processing techniques are inherently fast in view of parallel processing. This laboratory is involved during the last ten years in innovating techniques of all optical Fourier and wavelet transforms for image processing. A self adaptive optical Fourier processing system, using photo induced dichroism in a Bacteriorhodopsin film was experimentally demonstrated with applications in noise reduction, edge enhancement and band pass filtering in real time. Application of these powerful techniques for enhancement of medical images is the object of this project. Preliminary results on three mammograms demonstrated the feasibility. By playing with one knob (rotating the analyzer in the optical system) either the micro calcification clusters or the surrounding dense tissue can be selectively displayed. The technique is fast and the scan rate of mammograms is only limited by the frame rate of the CCD camera. An integrated architecture is proposed using electronic optical interfaces. Analog images of mammograms and phantoms will be investigated initially. Both commercially available standard as well as custom designed objects will be used for a thorough contrast detail analysis. The system will be made versatile so that it can accept medical images in analog as well as digital format. The focus is on optimizing the experimental arrangement and study a large number of mammograms in collaboration with the Radiology group of our medicalzchool in Worcester and carry out relevant statistical analysis. Bacteriorhodopsin films are stable up to 140 degrees C and environmental friendly. As no interference is involved in the experiments, vibration isolation and even a coherent light source are not required. The system designed already with a portable and energy efficient battery operated solid state laser is field deployable. With potential new advances in semiconductor lasers on small chips, it may be possible to further decrease the size and cost resulting in a small handy signal enhancing magnifier. The purpose of the investigation is not to compete with the expensive digital techniques for image processing but to develop a low cost portable instrument accessible to rural areas for quick screening of large number of mammograms.