Ultrasound Sub-pixel Motion-tracking Method with Out-of-plane Motion Detection for Precise Vascular Imaging
| Autor: | Shin Yoshizawa, Kenichi Kawabata, Taku Yamamoto, Tomohiko Tanaka, Hideki Yoshikawa, Shin-ichiro Umemura |
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| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Acoustics and Ultrasonics
Image quality Computer science Biophysics Residual Tracking (particle physics) 01 natural sciences Imaging phantom 030218 nuclear medicine & medical imaging 03 medical and health sciences Motion 0302 clinical medicine Match moving 0103 physical sciences Animals Radiology Nuclear Medicine and imaging Computer vision 010301 acoustics Ultrasonography Motion compensation Radiological and Ultrasound Technology Pixel business.industry Phantoms Imaging Motion detection Blood Vessels Artificial intelligence Rabbits business |
| Zdroj: | Ultrasound in medicinebiology. 46(3) |
| ISSN: | 1879-291X |
| Popis: | Ultrasound vascularity imaging provides important information for differential diagnosis of tumors. Peak-hold (PH) is a useful technique for precisely imaging small vessels by selecting a maximum brightness in each pixel through the frames obtained sequentially. To use PH successfully one needs motion compensation to reduce image blur, but out-of-plane motion cannot be avoided. To address this problem, we developed a sub-pixel motion-tracking method with out-of-plane motion detection (OPMD). It is a combination of the sum of the absolute differences (SAD) method and the Kanade-Lucas-Tomasi method and can be accurately applied to various motions. The value from OPMD (γ) is defined as a statistical value obtained from the distribution of residual values in the SAD procedure with the obtained frames. The value is ideally 0, and the frames having large γ are removed from the PH procedure. The accuracy of the proposed tracking method was found by a simulation study to be approximately 20 μm. We also found, through a phantom experiment, that the value of γ sensitively increased enough to detect out-of-plane motion. Most important, γ begins to increase before tracking errors occur. This suggests that OPMD can be used to predict tracking errors and effectively remove frames from the PH procedure. An in vivo experiment with a rabbit showed that the PH image obtained with motion tracking clearly revealed peripheral vessels that were blurred in the PH image obtained without motion tracking. We also found that the image quality becomes better when OPMD was used to remove frames including out-of-plane motion. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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