Phase insensitive homomorphic image processing for speckle reduction

Abstract

Speckle appears in all conventional ultrasound images and is caused by the use of a phase-sensitive transducer. Speckle is an undesirable property as it can mask small but perhaps diagnostically significant image features. In this paper a homomorphic, hybrid nonlinear processing method, based on cancellation of scattering interference, is developed and examined. Experiments with synthetic and real ultrasound imagery show that the proposed method improves the contrast-to-noise ratio in both lesion and cyst areas and preserves edge clarity.