High-dynamic range compression using a fast multiscale optimization

High-dynamic-range medical images have intensity values which cannot be visualized on current low-dynamic-range displays. In this paper, we introduce a fast range compression method which avoids common artifacts such as loss of contrast, haloes and gradient inversions. The proposed method first compresses the intensity range using a global transfer function. It then extracts and enhances weak structures using a multiscale decomposition and artifact correction. We show that artifact correction can be formulated as a linear-programming problem, for which we propose an efficient approximate solution. Experiments on real data demonstrate the effectiveness and speed of the proposed algorithm.