Title: A fourth-order PDE-based non-linear filter for speckle reduction from Optical Coherence Tomography images

Authors: Subodh Srivastava; Rajeev Srivastava; Neeraj Sharma; S.K. Singh; Shiru Sharma

Addresses: School of Bio-Medical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi 221005, UP, India ' Department of Computer Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi-221005, UP, India ' School of Bio-Medical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi 221005, UP, India ' Department of Computer Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi 221005, UP, India ' School of Bio-Medical Engineering, Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (ITBHU), Varanasi 221005, UP, India

Abstract: In this paper, a fourth-order PDE-based non-linear filter for speckle reduction from Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) images is proposed in a variational framework. The speckle noise pattern in OCT images is distributed according to Rayleigh's Probability Distribution Function (pdf). The initial condition of the proposed PDE-based filter is the speckle noised OCT images and the output is the better quality speckle reduced image. For digital implementations, the proposed scheme is discretised using the finite difference scheme. The performance comparison of the proposed scheme with other standard speckle reduction techniques such as the Lee filter, the Frost filter, the Kuan filter, the SRAD filter, the homomorphic Wiener filter and homomorphic versions of the anisotropic diffusion based filter, the non-linear complex diffusion-based filter and the fourth order PDE-based filter is also presented. The obtained results justify the applicability of the proposed scheme.

Keywords: OCT images; optical coherence tomography; speckle reduction; noise removal; PDE-based filters; medical imaging; image processing; performance comparison; partial differential equations; finite difference method.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2012.049325

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2012 Vol.10 No.1, pp.55 - 69

Published online: 12 Dec 2014 *

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