US 7,796,829 B2Granted

Method and system for forming an image with enhanced contrast and/or reduced noise

AssigneeThe United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Army

InventorsLam Huy Nguyen, Jeffrey P. Sichina

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Abstract

A method and system for generating images from projection data; a preferred embodiment comprising inputting projection data from at least one receiving element; generating a first aperture or array of data points containing positional and signal data; arbitrarily and/or randomly removing data points from the first array to form a series of subarrays comprising different sets of data points; generating preliminary images from the subarrays; comparing the corresponding image pixels from two preliminary images to determine for each pixel location the lesser or equal pixel values; forming a merged image from the lesser or equal pixel values; and repeating the comparison of corresponding image pixels of another preliminary image to the merged image to determine the lesser or equal pixel values until a merged image of the desired quality is obtained. A preferred embodiment of the system may comprise at least one processor, comparator and/or image generator.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for generating images from projection data comprising:

scanning an area using at least one data receiving element to obtain first values representing combined positional and recorded data;
each of said first values forming a point in an array of k data points;
the first point in the array representing the positional information and the recorded data obtained during the first increment;
the kth data point in the array representing the combined positional information and recorded data obtained by the at least one data receiving element during the kth increment;
where k is a number greater than 1;
removing approximately twenty to fifty percent of the data points from the array;
forming a first preliminary bit-mapped image using the reduced array of data points;
forming a second array by removing approximately twenty to fifty percent of the data points from the array;
forming a second preliminary bit-mapped image using the second array of data points;
generating a combined image by comparing each bit-mapped location of the first and second preliminary images and removing any pixel value which is greater in value at respective bit mapped locations to form a merged image of lesser or equal value pixels;
subsequently repeating the steps of removing approximately twenty to fifty percent of the data points from the array to form a reduced array, and forming a subsequent preliminary image from the reduced array, and generating a merged image by comparing the pixel values of the subsequent preliminary image to the preceding merged image, eliminating the greater values, and forming a subsequent combined image from the resulting lesser or equal pixel values;
whereby the steps are repeated over a series of iterations until the desired image resolution is obtained.

9 more elements

A signal processing system for removing unwanted noise in the generation of an image using electromagnetic signals comprising:

at least one receiving element for receiving signal data at different positions 1 though k;
a processor for forming a first array of data points 1 though k;
each data point comprising positional information representing the location of the at least one receiving element and signal data received by the at least one receiving element;
the processor operating to remove a percentage of the data points from the first array in the range of approximately 20 to 50 percent to form a second array, and generate a first preliminary image from the second array;
the processor operating to randomly or arbitrarily remove a percentage of data points in the range of 20 to 50 percent from the first array to form a series of arrays, each array in the series generally containing a substantially different set of data points;
an image generator for generating preliminary images from each array in the series of arrays;
a comparator for comparing the pixel values at each bitmapped location for at least two preliminary images and outputting the lesser or equal pixel value for each respective bitmapped location;
the image generator operating to generate a merged image from the output of the comparator;
the comparator further operating to compare a series of preliminary images with a merged image iteratively;
each time outputting the lesser or equal pixel value for each respective bitmapped location to form a merged image and iteratively comparing another in the series of preliminary images with the merged image;
a display for displaying the merged image.

8 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.