Advanced image enhancement filter for 2-D ultrasound images

超声成像为医学应用和人体健康诊断提供了一种有用且经济有效的获取人体内部图像的方法。为了以足够的分辨率对人体进行成像，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对系统性能有害，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，医生和超声波技术人员可以更好地定位肿瘤或其他异常。这对健康相关的应用（如疾病的早期检测）具有显著的好处。目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有害噪声。特别是，超声医疗公司（超声）是一家总部位于温哥华的公司，他们在超声系统上实施实时过滤技术，以提高操作员的功能。我们的目标是设计一个自定义滤波器，在尽可能保持原始图像质量的同时去除噪声。这一目标激发了与超声医疗公司拟议的研究和开发合作。

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.