International Journal of Research in Computer and Communication Technology, Vol 2, Issue 9, September -2013

ISSN(Online) 2278-5841 ISSN (Print) 2320-5156

A New Filtering Technique for Reducing Speckle Noise From Ultrasound Images
Mehedi Hasan Talukder, Md. Aminul Islam, Tushar Kumar Ghosh, Md. Mokhlashur Rahman Mawlana Bhashani Science and Technology University MBSTU, Santosh, Tangail-1902 (Bangladesh) Abstract-- Noise is the annoying problem in the field of image processing. In Medical image such as Ultrasound image, MRI data and Radar Images are affected by different types of noise. So it is the major task to eliminate such noises. In image processing Median filtering is a technique for reducing image noise without removing significant parts of the image contents, such as edges, lines or other details that are important to represent the quality of the image. To acquire a better performance we state an another method in the median filter that works efficiently to reduce noise an image without blurring the frontiers between different regions. To evaluate the performance we calculate the Signal to Noise Ratio, The Peak Signal to Noise Ratio, The Root Mean Square Error, The Edge Preservative Factor and also other image quality measurement criteria. This method gives the better result with comparison to existing the basic median filter. Keywords---Median Filter, MRI data, Ultrasound Image, Speckle Noise, Performance Evaluation, Multiplicative noise. The common problem in Ultrasound image is speckle noise. Speckle is basically a form of multiplicative noise which makes the gray scale of pixels change violently, hide the subtle details and makes the imaging resolution descend greatly. Speckle [2] is not a noise in an image but noise-like variation in contrast. Speckle is basically a form of multiplicative noise. Which makes the grayscale of pixels change violently, hides the subtle details and makes the imaging resolution descend greatly. Ultrasound image have a high noise content and suffer poor contrast.. If the ultrasound image contaminated by noise then an efficient filtering is required to localize the desired object. In those case the filtering is most important. So we should use an optimized optimized method to denoise an image very efficiently. For medical image we often faced Low Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR), Low Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) , High Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) and Low Edge Presurevative Factor (EPF) . But if the SNR is too small or the contrast too low it becomes very difficult to detect anatomical structures because tissue characteriza- tion fails [1]. For a visual analysis of medical images, the clarity of details and the object visibility are important, so high SNR ,PSNR & EPF are required because most of the image segmentation algorithms are very sensitive to noise [1]. In this paper we state an optimized filtering method to denoise an image properly that satisfies the image quality criteria. It reduce noise from an image with improve the SNR, PSNR, EPF and also other image quality measurement parameter.

1. INTRODUCTION
Images are often contaminated by different types of noise such as Impulse noise, Gaussian noise, Speckle noise and mixed noise ( Impulse and Gaussian ) during the transmission, faulty memory location, coherence of waves or timing error. For medical images, the clarity of details and object visibility are important, whereas for image processing a high SNR is required because most of the image segmentation algorithms are very sensitive to noise [1]. Ultrasound image is widely used in the field of medical science.

2. BASIC MEDIAN FILTER

The median filter [3] is normally used to reduce noise in an image, somewhat like the mean filter. However, it often does a better job than the mean filter of

www.ijrcct.org

Page 685

preserving useful detail in the image. Like the mean filter, the median filter considers each pixel in the image in turn and looks at its nearby neighbors to decide whether or not it is representative of its surroundings. Instead of simply replacing the pixel value with the mean of neighboring pixel values, it replaces it with the median of those values. The median is calculated by first sorting all the pixel values from the surrounding neighborhood into numerical order and then replacing the pixel being considered with the middle pixel value. (If the neighborhood under consideration contains an even number of pixels, the average of the two middle pixel values is used.) Figure 1 illustrates an example calculation. 120 126 143 127 118 111 124 120 115 128 120 126 150 119 132 112 127 125 123 131 213 146 121 122 130

International Journal of Research in Computer and Communication Technology, Vol 2, Issue 9, September -2013

ISSN(Online) 2278-5841 ISSN (Print) 2320-5156

differ the noise and signal, we calculate the mean ( ) and standard deviation (d) of the window. If the pixel is between - d and + d then it is a signal otherwise noise and we will apply median filter on it that is shown in Figure 2.

ALGORITHM:
1. 2. 3. THEN Read an Image I. Calculate the mean ( ) and standard deviation (d) in Sxy. And A= -d B= +d IF A <= Scenter and Scenter <= B THEN Result(x,y) = I(x,y) ELSEIF A <= Smedian and Smedian <= B Result(x, y) = Smedian ELSEIF window_size <= Smax THEN Increase the window size and go to ELSE Result(x, y) = Smedian Repeat the step 2 and 3 on entire image. Display the Resultant Image.

Figure 1: Calculating the median value of a pixel neighborhood Consider the following neighborhood 124 120 115 126 150 119 127 125 123

step 2 4. 5. Where,

The sorted neighborhood values are: 115, 119, 120, 124, 125, 126, 127, 150. So the Median value is 124. That is replaced by central values of the neighborhood.

3. PROPOSED FILTERING METHOD

An additional benefit of our proposed method is that it seeks to preserve detail while smoothing noise, something that the traditional median filter does not do. Our proposed filter works in a rectangular window area Sxy. Our proposed filter increases the size of the windows during filter operation depending on certain condition. At first we estimate that the center pixel of window is noise or not. To

Smax = Maximum allowed size in Sxy. Scenter = Center gray level in Sxy. Smedian = Median of gray level in Sxy.

4. EVALUATION CRITERIA
To validate the efficiency of this method we have defined some statistical criteria of image performance. Additionally to subjective visual evaluation , it is desirable to present quantitative measure. The parameters which are used in

www.ijrcct.org

Page 686

estimation of performance are SNR, PSNR , RMSE, EPF, RMSE_SNR, IFy, MSSIM.

International Journal of Research in Computer and Communication Technology, Vol 2, Issue 9, September -2013
Where,

ISSN(Online) 2278-5841 ISSN (Print) 2320-5156

=

Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) [5]:

=
( ( , ) ( , ) ( , ))

Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) [5]:

Where, = = 10 log

And
( ( , ) ( , ))

= ( = (

Edge Preservative Factor (EPF) [5] :

=
, ,

Where, L is the range of pixel values (255 for 8-bit grayscale images). And K1 << 1 is a small constant and also K2 << 1.

5. EXPERIMENTAL RESULT
,

Where,

Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) [5]: Root Mean Square of Signal of Noise ratio (RMS_SNR) [6]:
_ =
( , )

( 1, 2) = =

1. 2

To validate the efficiency of our proposed method , the simulation study has been carried out using MATHLAB image processing Toolbox. One standard Medical image(Ultrasound Image) is selected for simulation study. Our Proposed algorithm has been applied to 2D ultrasound image with have been contaminated by multiplicative noise. Our proposed algorithm is compared with existing method which is shown in Table 1. Table 1: Comparison of existing Median Filter and Proposed Method for Ultrasound image with Speckle noise. Criteria SNR PSNR RMSE EPF RMS_SNR RM IFy MSSIM Median Filter 31.9853 77.7377 0.0331 0.6084 4.7590 0.9773 0.9687 1.0000 Proposed Method 34.8475 78.9856 0.0287 0.6994 5.5496 0.9846 0.9713 1.0000

Ratio of Mean gray level or Capacity to preserve contrast (RM): Image Fidelity (IFy) [7]:
=1

( ( , )

( , ))

Where f1 means original Image, f2 means diffused Image and f1 & f2 represents the Mean of Original image and diffused image respectively. MN is size of Image and x means row and y means columns.

Measuring Similarity between two image (MSSIM) [8][9] :

( , )= ( , )
)

Visual Comparisons are given bellow:

www.ijrcct.org

( , )=

Page 687

International Journal of Research in Computer and Communication Technology, Vol 2, Issue 9, September -2013
1.

ISSN(Online) 2278-5841 ISSN (Print) 2320-5156

REFERENCES
Nonlinear Anisotropic filtering of MRI data . IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING. VOL. 1 I . NO. 2. JUNE 1192 . S J. W. Goodman, Some fundamental properties of speckle, J. Opt. Soc. Amer., vol. 66, no. 11, pp. 11451149, 1976. Vibhakar Fundamentals of Digital Image Processing , Anil K Jain. http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/HIPR2/me dian.htm. Digital Image Processing. Third Edition By Rafael C. Gonzalez . Filtering Corrupted Image and Edge Detection in Restored Grayscale Image Using Derivative Filters . International Journal of Image Processing, (IJIP) Volume (3) : Issue (3). www.google.com Z. Wang, A. Bovik, H. Sheikh, and E. Simoncelli, Image quality assessment: From error measurement to structural similarity, IEEE Trans. Image Process., vol. 13, no. 4, pp. 600612, Apr. 2004. Image Independent Filter for Removal of Speckle Noise . IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Vol. 8, Issue 5, No 3, September 2011.

2.

(a)

3. 4. 5. 6.

(b)

7. 8.

9.

(c) Figure 1: a) Original Noisy Image, b) Filtered Image using Median Filter, c) Filtered Image using Proposed method

6. CONCLUSION
Image denoising has become a crucial step for correct diagnosis. The current need of healthcare industries is to preserve useful diagnostic information with minimum noise. In this paper, the proposed methods performance for denoising an image is evaluated both subjectively and objectively. The experimental results prove that the proposed method produces images which are cleaner and smoother and at the same time kept significant details, resulting in a clearer an appealing vision . The experimental result also shows that the proposed method restores the fine details, such as lines, frontiers and corners efficiently and shows better results when comparing with the basic median filter.

www.ijrcct.org

Page 688