Bioengineering 508: Bioengineering 508:

Physical Aspects of Medical Imaging

Physical Aspects of Medical Imaging
http://courses.washington.edu/bioen508/

Introduction to Medical Imaging

Organizer: Paul Kinahan, PhD
1. Medical Imaging Modalities
Adam Alessio, PhD 2. Modern Image Generation
Ruth Schmitz, PhD
3. Intro to Image Quality
Lawrence MacDonald, PhD

Adam Alessio, PhD

Imaging Research Laboratory
http://depts.washington.edu/nucmed/IRL/
Department of Radiology
University of Washington Medical Center
Alessio - BIO508
Department of Radiology
University of Washington Medical Center
aalessio@u.washington.edu
Alessio - BIO508

Nature of Medical Imaging Nature of Medical Imaging

For this class:

Medical Imaging: Non-invasive imaging of internal QUICK CAVEAT
organs, tissues, bones, etc.
• Powerpoint Slides are just a vehicle for major topics
Focus on: • These do not have all the information discussed in
1. Macroscopic not microscopic class!
2. in vivo (in the body) not in vitro (“in glass”, in the lab) • Taking notes to supplement slides is probably a
3. Primarily human studies good idea!
4. Primarily clinical diagnostic applications

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 Types of Medical Imaging (Modalities) Types of Medical Imaging (Modalities)

Grouped by underlying physics:

Electromagnetic Spectrum
Nuclear medicine
• X-Ray/CT
• Ultrasound Major 4 that dominate
clinical imaging, focus
• Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) of this course
• Nuclear Medicine
• Optical Primarily microscopic
• Magnetic Field
• Electric Field
• Thermal Mainly research based
• Optoacoustic
• Elastography

For comparison, this is

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but US is NOT electromagnetic!

Types of Medical Imaging (Modalities) Modern Image Generation

From continuous real world to a meaningful image

Classifications of Medical Images (on computer):
1. Anatomical vs. Functional 1. Sampling Continuous Information
• Anatomy/Structure/Features vs. Physiology – Information and sampling technique varies widely for each
modality- Topic for later lectures
2. Emission vs. Transmission
– Computer can only hold discrete chunks of data
• Where does energy imaged originate?
– Pixel = a single picture element; Voxel = a single volume
3. Projection vs. Tomographic element
• Projection--> 2D imaging, single plane, no depth 2. Quantizing Samples
information – Each discrete chunk must be represented by certain number
• Tomographic (“tomo” = slice, graphy=image) --> volumetric of bits
3. Visualization Techniques of quantized, sampled image
volumes

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 1. Sampling Continuous Information Intro to Sampling Theory

Given a signal such as a sine wave with We can sample the points at a uniform rate of 3
frequency 1 Hz: Hz and reconstruct the signal:

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Intro to Sampling Theory Intro to Sampling Theory

However, if we sample below 2 Hz, we don’t have

We can also sample the signal at a slower rate of enough information to reconstruct the signal, and in
2 Hz and still accurately reconstruct the signal: fact we may construct a different signal (an alias):

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 Intro to Sampling Theory Intro to Sampling Theory
• Aliasing
– occurs when your sampling rate is not high enough to capture the
amount of detail in your image
– Can give you the wrong signal/image—an alias
– Where can it happen in graphics? • To perform sampling correctly in image space, need
• During image synthesis: to understand structure of data/image
– sampling continuous signal into discrete signal
– e.g. ray tracing, line drawing, function plotting, etc. • Fourier: “Any periodic function can be rewritten as a weighted
• During image processing: sum of sines and cosines of different frequencies.” - Fourier
– resampling discrete signal at a different rate Series
– e.g. Image warping, zooming in, zooming out, etc.
• Nyquist criterion: Must sample at two times the highest frequency in the
signal for the samples to uniquely define the given signal
SamplingRate
FNyquist =
2
– Sampling below the Nyquist frequency can cause aliasing (CD sampling example)

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A sum of sines Fourier Transform

Signal f(x)
• Our building block:
1D Example:
•
Asin("x + ! ) • A signal composed of two sine
waves with frequency 2 Hz and 50
Hz
• Add enough of them to get
• The Fourier Transform of the
any signal f(x) you want signal shows these two
• Which one encodes the frequencies
Fourier Transform of f(x)
coarse vs. fine structure of
the signal? In 2D:
Usually represent low
• What would an image look •
frequencies near origin, high
like with a lot of high frequencies away from origin
frequency content?
• What could you do to reduce High Freq High Freq frequency
speckled noise from an
image? Low Freq

High Freq High Freq

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 2D Fourier Transforms 2D Fourier Transforms
Image in frequency domain Image in frequency domain Image in frequency domain Image in frequency domain
Image in space domain (magnitude of frequency component) (log magnitude of frequency component) Image in space domain (magnitude of frequency component) (log magnitude of frequency component)

Original

After low-pass

After high-pass

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Frequency Content Frequency Content

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 Modern Image Generation 2. Quantization

From continuous real world to a meaningful image

(on computer): • Only have finite storage available for each picture
1. Sampling Continuous Information
element
– Information and sampling technique varies widely for each • Digital images have “digitized” intensity values.
modality- Topic for later lectures
Continuous values are quantized into discrete values.
– Computer can only hold discrete chunks of data
– Pixel = a single picture element; Voxel = a single volume – Example: “Truecolor” on computer displays use 24 bits for
element each pixel (8bits blue, 8 bits red, 8bits green=256x256x256
2. Quantizing Samples possible colors)
– Each discrete chunk must be represented by certain number – Many medical imaging modalities use intensity values of 12
of bits bits per pixel. (2^12=4096 possible gray levels)
3. Visualization Techniques of quantized, sampled image
volumes

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Color depth
8 bits per pixel 5 bits per pixel 4 bits per pixel

3 bits per pixel 2 bits per pixel 1 bit per pixel

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