Statistical modeling of the radio-frequency signal in echocardiographic images based on generalized Gaussian distribution

We study in this work the statistics of the radio frequency (RF) signal for both fully and partially developed speckle in echocardiographic images in the context of image segmentation and classification. From physical image formation model, we first derive the probability density function (PDF) of the RF signal using the K distribution framework. We then show that this pdf may be reliably approximated through a generalized Gaussian distribution. The ability of the proposed distribution to model RD echocardiographic signals from cardiac tissue and blood region is demonstrated on data acquired in vivo