Nonlinear edge preserving smoothing and segmentation of 4-D medical images via scale-space fingerprint analysis

Abstract

An approach is described which has the potential to unify edge preserving smoothing with segmentation based on differential edge detection at multiple scales. The analysis of n-D data is decomposed into independent 1-D problems. Smoothing in various directions along 1-D profiles through n-D data is driven by local structure separation, rather than by local contrast. Analytic expressions are obtained for the derivatives of the edge preserved 1-D profiles. Using these expressions, multidimensional edge detection operators such as the Laplacian or second directional derivative can be composed and used to segment n-D data. The smoothing and segmentation algorithms are applied to simulated 4-D medical images.