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Quantitative Effects of Stationary Linear Image Processing on Noise and Resolution of Structure in Radionuclide Images

The University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and the Franklin McLean Memorial Research Institute, Chicago, Illinois

Correspondence: For reprints contact: Charles E. Metz, Box 429, Dept. of Radiology, The University of Chicago, 950 E. 59th St., Chicago, Ill. 60637.

ABSTRACT

Processing radionuclide image data in an attempt to improve its diagnostic usefulness inevitably changes both the noise and the resolution of structures in the image. Although at present little conclusive evidence exists to indicate whether or not image processing is beneficial, an understanding of the quantitative effects of various processing techniques on parameters of resolution, noise magnitude, and noise texture seems to provide a useful beginning towards solution of the more difficult problem of understanding the effects of image processing on diagnostic image quality. Quantitative effects of stationary linear image processing procedures, which include all convolutions and "filtering" operations, can be predicted rather simply. In the present work, expressions for predicting these quantitative effects are developed and are applied to computer-synthesized image data to provide illustrative examples of the effects of typical noise-smoothing and resolution-enhancing operations.