Synthesis-based scalable image enhancement for digital radiography

The ability to resolve fine picture detail is of paramount importance in a medical imaging system when it comes to view small tissues, bone structure and anatomy in X-ray images. In order to enhance diagnostic information and suppress irrelevant detail, we present a new digital X-ray imaging processing system with the property of scalability and adaptability. First, a new optimum contrast enhancement algorithm is proposed for display. The adaptive detection of the region-of-interest is developed. Second, a so called "scalable edge enhancement algorithm" is proposed to improve the image quality for showing subtle structures of the digital X-ray images. The advantage of the scheme is demonstrated by an experiments on 200 X-ray images, in which different parts of human body structures are captured.