Advanced image enhancement filter for 2-D ultrasound images

超声成像提供了一种有用的和成本有效的方式来获得身体的内部图像，用于医疗应用和人类健康的诊断。为了获得足够分辨率的物体图像，图像质量成为一个重要的工程目标。噪声导致的图像质量下降会损害系统性能，并可能导致疾病的误诊和内部器官特性的不准确测量。例如，如果图像质量提高，医生和超声技术人员可以更好地定位肿瘤或其他异常。这对于与健康相关的应用例如疾病的早期检测具有显著的益处。当前在图像质量增强领域的研究调查了使用滤波器来减少超声图像中的不想要的噪声。特别是，Ultrasonix Medical Corp.（Ultrasonix）是一家总部位于温哥华的公司，该公司在其超声系统上实施了真实的时间滤波技术，以改善操作员的功能。我们的目标是设计一个自定义滤波器，以消除噪声，同时尽可能保持原始图像质量。这一目标激发了与Ultrasonix Medical Corp.的拟议研发合作。

Ultrasound imaging provides a useful and cost effective way to obtain internal images of the body for medical applications and diagnosis of human health. In order to image the body with adequate resolution, the image quality becomes an important engineering objective. Decreased image quality from noise is detrimental to system performance, and can lead to misdiagnosis of disease and inaccurate measurement of internal organ properties. For example, if image quality was increased, medical Doctors and ultrasound technologists can better locate tumors or other abnormalities. This has significant benefit for health related applications such as early detection of disease. Current research in the area of image quality enhancement investigates the use of filters to reduce unwanted noise in ultrasound images. In particular, Ultrasonix Medical Corp. (Ultrasonix) is a Vancouver based company who implements real time filtering technology on its ultrasound systems in order to improve functionality to operators. Our objective is to design a custom filter to remove noise while preserving the original image quality as much as possible. This objective motivates the proposed research and development collaboration with Ultrasonix Medical Corp.