ISSN: 2312-7694

Tahira et al, / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE), Vol. 2 (5), 2015, 682-685

An Image-Based Bone fracture Detection Using

AForge Library
Tahira younas
Department of Software Engineering, Fatima Jinnah Women University
Rawalpindi, Pakistan
Tahira564@gmail.com

Abstract- The paper discusses the technique of accurate

edge detection which is important to find out bone fractures
from an x-ray image using digital image analysis accurately
using Guassian and Canny edge detection methods. This
system is built using AForge library combined with Guassian
and Canny edge detection methods. Use of proposed
technique demonstrates its wide application in medical field.

Index Terms- Edge, Fracture, Edge detection, filter,

Invert, Threshold, Guassian , Canny.
I.

INTRODUCTION

Now a day digital image processing is an extended region

with applications, especially in dynamic transmission of
pictures, feature coding (video chatting), advanced
libraries, picture database, remote detecting, and other
specific connected utilization. This reason leads digital
image analysis as helpful tool in medical, education, art
and crime prevention etc (Pathan, Jusoff, Alias, Razali,
Qureshi, & others, 2011)
In medical field doctors are able to collect quantitative and
qualitative information about physiology and anatomy
using medical images and by applying digital image
processings techniques. Similarly X-ray, MRI , digital
radiography and ultrasound are used now a days for
decision making. These images are used by applying
different techniques of digital image processing
(KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, & SUDANA, 2014).
One of the most established and as often as utilized gadget
to catch human bones is X-Ray. A x-beam makes pictures
of any bone in the body and is primarily used to recognize
problem in human bones.
Similarly when we use x-ray image of bone to detect bone
fracture, digital images are segmented and different
algorithms are applied to identify the broken edges of
bone. The techniques to identify edges are canny, sobel ,
prewitt , and robert but in this paper we are using Gussian
filter for noise removal and canny edge detection which
locate the edges by using the boundary of bone detection
(Aishwariya, Geetha, & Archana).
Bone fracture can be detected by applying various
techniques such as SAMUEL used Canny edge detection

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method using OPENCV to detect bone edges

(KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, & SUDANA, 2014).
Similarly Jaskirat kaur et al. 2looks at picture division of
X-beam picture utilizing different edge identification
strategies and found that best division results were gotten
utilizing careful edge identification . Subodh kumar et al
performed X-beam picture division utilizing sobel edge
recognition technique . Satanage et al has connected
diverse edge location strategies on X-beam pictures.
furthermore, watched that the ordinary edge recognition
strategies likewise give best division results . Tian et al.
(2003) has executed the strategy for recognizing femur
cracks in x-beam pictures by processing the edge between
the pole hub and the neck pivot.
Donnelley et al. (2008) have made a CAD framework for
the long bone break recognition. Which is used to improve
the manual examination of X-ray images (Chai, Wee,
Swee, Salleh, Ariff, & others, 2011). Ouyang et al. (1998)
had proposed surface investigation of spinal trabecular
bone structure by utilizing higher request measurement
investigation. Materka et al. (2000) worked on bone
mineral thickness assessed by method for Dualphoton
Absorptiometry (DXA) (Chai, Wee, Swee, Salleh, Ariff,
& others, 2011).
Manual fracture detection by area specialists is the most
exact and accurate but it has lengthy algorithm on the
other hand auto edge detection is very fast but it requires
much more effort for accuracy (Sachin R.Mahajan, 2012).
In this paper we used four steps to detect the fractured
bone edges. In first step we have performed preprocessing then Gaussian sharpen filter is applied to
remove the noise then canny edge detection to detect the
image edges and then by inverting image we will have
final image in which fractured part of image will be much
more clearer.
II. METHODOLOGY
1.Pre-processing:
x-ray images are used for bones analysis. They dont give
better results for muscles and tissues. Some x-ray images
may be dark, some may light. Moreover mostly the x-ray

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ISSN: 2312-7694
Tahira et al, / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE), Vol. 2 (5), 2015, 682-685

images are frequently degraded by different unknown type

of noise which should be removed for accurate results. But
before noise removal first we will convert our x-ray
image into Black & White image by applying suitable
Threshold value. This black and white image will be
converted into gray scale for further processing.
2.Noise Removal:
As mostly x-ray images are degraded by noise so it is
important to remove the noise and smoothen the digital
image so by using Guassian filter image can be smoothen
and by removing its unnecessary details and noise.
Guassian filter is two dimensional filter and degree of
smoothening operator performs a weighted average of
surrounding pixels where surrounding depends upon the
Guassian distribution in a digital image.
This technique proves itself more effective to smoothen
the digital image because it has basis for human visual
sensitivity.

This will gives only one response for each edge,

which eliminate the confusion while edge
detection.
Important parameters which can effect every
resultant image are
i) Threshold value
ii) Guassian Gradient value

Steps of Canny Edge Detection filter are:

1) First removal of noise because it may possible that
Guassian noise removal may have used simple mask.
2) After noise removal, image gets smoothen so the next
step of canny edge detection is find out gradient using
Sobel operator.

3.Canny edge detection :

An edge is the limit between an item and the foundation.
Edge recognition is basically distinguishing the objects
from their boundary where pixel intensity sharply gets
changed.[4]
To detect the edges of broken bone in x-ray image we
have used Canny edge detection technique.
Canny edge detection techniques is highly significant
because it filters out unnecessary details of image by
reduces the amount of data while preserving necessary
details of edges.
Canny edge detection technique is very much helpful for
accurate results because it includes series of useful steps :

Canny edge technique is more flexible to use

because it gives flexibility to determine the edge
thickness according the user requirements.
Canny edge detection is good for accuracy
because it Sobel operator to find edge strength.
Sobel operator uses 2-D spatial gradient to find
edge strength and 3x3 matrix to calculate both x
and y gradients which ensures more precision
(KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, & SUDANA,
2014).

3) Finding out the total gradient value using formula

(KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, & SUDANA,
2014) |G|=|Gx|+|Gy|
4) Now we will find the edge direction using given
formula (KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, &
SUDANA, 2014)

5) After finding out the direction of edges, non

maximum suppression must be applied, which is used
to differentiate edge pixels from non edge pixels. Non
edge pixels are set as 0 in order to get un necessary
emerging edges. This will give slimmer edge line.
6) At last breaking points in edges are founded out.
These breaking points may come when operator
output fluctuate above and below the threshold value.
4. Image negative :
In last step we will invert output image from canny edge
detection so that the image must look clear enough to use
in analysis of routine cases.

Gradient (X)

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Gradient (y)

System overview:

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ISSN: 2312-7694
Tahira et al, / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE), Vol. 2 (5), 2015, 682-685

The systematic overview of this program is explained in

detail in given flowchart. The flow chart gives step by
step operations performed on an image to get require
results.

1.
2.

3.

4.

Input x-ray
image

5.
6.

Applying
threshold

7.

First of all user ,must select an x-ray image of

bone for analysis.
System will perform pre-processing by applying
suitable threshold value to convert this image in
two colours.
After applying threshold system will convert this
image into eight bit image to apply Guassian
filter to remove the image noise.
Now system will apply GuassianSharpen filter to
remove unnecessary details of the image.
In next step system will identify edges by
applying Canny edge detection filter.
After applying Canny filter system will invert the
image so that the output should be more clearer
to the user.
In last step user will identify broken edges from
the output image.

Results and Analysis :

Applying
Guassian
filter

In this part of the paper corresponding results

Applying
Canny filter

Image
negative

Output
image

Fracture
extraction

are analyzed.
Fig 2.operational view of X-ray image for output
Fig 1.Flowchart of proposed bone fracture detection
system

Step by step explanation of the whole procedure is given

below.

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Image 1 and image 2 are x-ray images taken

from internet for analysis. And the system
produced accurate results. image 3 is taken from
(KURNIAWAN, PUTRA, GEDE, & SUDANA, 2014)
for comparison purpose which gave 100%
results, similarly image 4 is taken from
(Swathika.B1)which also gave 98% accuracy.

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ISSN: 2312-7694
Tahira et al, / International Journal of Computer and Communication System Engineering (IJCCSE), Vol. 2 (5), 2015, 682-685
[7]

Conclusion:
The paper presents the Guassian and Canny methods to
analyse an x-ray image to detect the fractures. The
program is applied on real images and it provided almost
96.9% accurate results. And remaining accuracy is just
effected by the poor quality of x-ray images. So more
better results image quality must be improved so that the
accuracy should assist the radiologists to detect fractures
in an x-ray image.

[8]

[9]

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