Total variation-based speckle reduction using multi-grid algorithm for ultrasound images

Abstract

This paper presents an approach for speckle reduction and coherence enhancement of ultrasound images based on total variation (TV) minimization. The proposed method can preserve information associated with resolved object structures while reducing the speckle noise. However, since the equation system deduced by the TV-based method is a strongly nonlinear partial differential equation (PDE) system, the convergence rate is very slow when using standard numerical optimization techniques. So in this paper, we introduce the nonlinear multi-grid algorithm to solve this system. Numerical results indicate that the image can be recovered with satisfied result even contamination of strong noise using the proposed method and the algorithm of nonlinear multi-grid has more efficiency than the conventional numerical techniques such as conjugate gradient (CG). © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2005.