Ultrasound image uniformity is an important parameter for quality assurance in diagnostic ultrasounds, but it is usually assessed by a qualitative judgement of technicians so its estimation is rough and subjective. In this work a novel method is developed to give an objective measurement of the Bmode image uniformity over the whole field of view or some of its part: the Texture Distribution Analysis Method (TDAM) is based on a segmentation of the Region of Interest, depending on some texture features calculated from co-occurrence matrices. Results on a set of 10 test images with different non-uniformities (Uniformity Image Test Set or UITS) show a good sensitivity and agreement of TDAM with the mean judgment by 5 human observers (TUV): TDAM and TUV uniformity values are coherent for the whole UITS, nevertheless a high uncertainty in uniformity values has been observed (up to 28 percent). Preliminary results look encouraging and more efforts are worth to refine the method.
Scorza, A., Conforto, S., Lupi, G., Sciuto, S.A. (2015). A texture analysis approach for objective uniformity evaluation in diagnostic ultrasound imaging: A preliminary study. In Proceedings of the Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, EMBS (pp.6317-6320). Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc. [10.1109/EMBC.2015.7319837].
A texture analysis approach for objective uniformity evaluation in diagnostic ultrasound imaging: A preliminary study
SCORZA, ANDREA;CONFORTO, SILVIA;LUPI, GIULIA;SCIUTO, SALVATORE ANDREA
2015-01-01
Abstract
Ultrasound image uniformity is an important parameter for quality assurance in diagnostic ultrasounds, but it is usually assessed by a qualitative judgement of technicians so its estimation is rough and subjective. In this work a novel method is developed to give an objective measurement of the Bmode image uniformity over the whole field of view or some of its part: the Texture Distribution Analysis Method (TDAM) is based on a segmentation of the Region of Interest, depending on some texture features calculated from co-occurrence matrices. Results on a set of 10 test images with different non-uniformities (Uniformity Image Test Set or UITS) show a good sensitivity and agreement of TDAM with the mean judgment by 5 human observers (TUV): TDAM and TUV uniformity values are coherent for the whole UITS, nevertheless a high uncertainty in uniformity values has been observed (up to 28 percent). Preliminary results look encouraging and more efforts are worth to refine the method.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
