In this work, we construct a multi-frequency accelerating strategy for the contrast source inversion (CSI) method using pulse data in the time domain. CSI is a frequency-domain inversion method for ultrasound waveform tomography that does not require the forward solver through the process of reconstruction. Several prior researches show that the CSI method has a good performance of convergence and accuracy in the low-center-frequency situation. In contrast, utilizing the high-center-frequency data leads to a high-resolution reconstruction but slow convergence on large numbers of grid. Our objective is to take full advantage of all low frequency components from pulse data with the high-center-frequency data measured by the diagnostic device. First we process the raw data in the frequency domain. Then multi-frequency accelerating strategy helps restart CSI in the current frequency using the last iteration result obtained from the lower frequency component. The merit of multi- frequency accelerating strategy is that computational burden decreases at the first few iterations. Because the low frequency component of dataset computes on the coarse grid with assuming a fixed number of points per wavelength. In the numerical test, the pulse data were generated by the K-wave simulator and have been processed to meet the computation of the CSI method. We investigate the performance of the multi-frequency and single-frequency reconstructions and conclude that the multi-frequency accelerating strategy significantly enhances the quality of the reconstructed image and simultaneously reduces the average computational time for any iteration step.
Sarcopenia is the degenerative loss of skeletal muscle ability associated with aging. One reason is the increasing of adipose
ratio of muscle, which can be estimated by the speed of sound (SOS), since SOSs of muscle and adipose are different
(about 7%). For SOS imaging, the conventional bent-ray method iteratively finds ray paths and corrects SOS along them
by travel-time. However, the iteration is difficult to converge for soft tissue with bone inside, because of large speed
variation. In this study, the bent-ray method is modified to produce SOS images for limb muscle with bone inside. The
modified method includes three steps. First, travel-time is picked up by a proposed Akaike Information Criterion (AIC)
with energy term (AICE) method. The energy term is employed for detecting and abandoning the transmissive wave
through bone (low energy wave). It results in failed reconstruction for bone, but makes iteration convergence and gives
correct SOS for skeletal muscle. Second, ray paths are traced using Fermat’s principle. Finally, simultaneous algebraic
reconstruction technique (SART) is employed to correct SOS along ray paths, but excluding paths with low energy wave
which may pass through bone. The simulation evaluation was implemented by k-wave toolbox using a model of upper
arm. As the result, SOS of muscle was 1572.0±7.3 m/s, closing to 1567.0 m/s in the model. For vivo evaluation, a ring
transducer prototype was employed to scan the cross sections of lower arm and leg of a healthy volunteer. And the skeletal
muscle SOSs were 1564.0±14.8 m/s and 1564.1±18.0 m/s, respectively.
Reflection image from ultrasound computed tomography (USCT) system can be obtained by synthetic aperture technique, however its quality is decreased by phase aberration caused by inhomogeneous media. Therefore, phase aberration correction is important to improve image quality. In this study, multi-stencils fast marching method (MSFMM) is employed for phase correction. The MSFMM is an accurate and fast solution of Eikonal equation which considers the refraction. The proposed method includes two steps. First, the MSFMM is used to compute sound propagation time from each element to each image gird point using sound speed image of USCT. Second, synthetic aperture technique is employed to obtain reflection image using the computed propagation time. To evaluate the proposed method, both numerical simulation and phantom experiment were conducted. With regard to numerical simulation, both quantitative and qualitative comparisons between reflection images with and without phase aberration correction were given. In the quantitative comparison, the diameters of point spread function (PSF) in reflection images of a two layer structure were presented. In the qualitative comparison, reflection images of simple circle and complex breast modes with phase aberration correction show higher quality than that without the correction. In respect to phantom experiment, a piece of breast phantom with artificial glandular structure inside was scanned by a USCT prototype, and the artificial glandular structure is able to be visible more clearly in the reflection image with phase aberration correction than in that without the correction. In this study, a phase aberration correction method by the MSFMM are proposed for reflection image of the USCT.
Bent ray ultrasound sound speed tomography reconstruction can improve image quality comparing to straight ray. However, it suffers from time consuming ray linking, which finds bent ray to link a pair of given emitter and receiver. Currently, multi ray tracing always be required for single ray linking, but all of traced rays will be discarded excepting one which links the given emitter and receiver. It is important for reducing time cost to avoid the discarding and decrease ray tracing number. For this purpose, a novel bent ray reconstruction method (BRRM) using virtual receiver was proposed in this study. Single reconstruction iteration of proposed method includes five steps. Firstly, travel time difference map (TTDM) is picked by first peak method. Secondly, launch angles for straight rays are obtained. Thirdly, ray tracing for each obtained launch angle is implemented and their arrival positions in transducer ring are recorded. Fourthly, TTDM for virtual receivers, which are placed in each bent ray arrival position, is estimated by interpolation of picked TTDM. Fifthly, simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) is employed for reconstruction. To evaluated proposed method, ultrasound tomography RF data of simple and complex sound speed models are simulated by PZFlex. Reconstruction results show that proposed method can reduce ray tracing number to be about 20% and time cost to be one third of previous BRRM with similar image quality. In this study, a novel BRRM using virtual receiver is proposed to reduce ray tracing number and time cost of BRRM without image quality decreasing.
A novel algorithm is proposed in this paper to detect dim moving point target with several pixels size in infrared image
sequence, taken by line scan camera in high speed moving platform, with heavy background clutter and distortion. In the
algorithm, the regional information of candidate points, which are extracted from the images after background
suppression by spatial filter, is employed to track candidate points. After tracking candidate points, the velocity of every
candidate points can be calculated easily, and false candidate points which are extracted from clutter background, can be
find out by velocity classification and removed. Then, Double Hough Transform is applied on associating the remnant
candidate points in multi-frame sequence to detect the target. The algorithm can get a high detection probability and
reduce false alarm rate dramatically.
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