This database can be useful for many purposes, including research, education, quality assurance, and other demonstrations.

The luminance change in CRT monitor display under long-term usage will have a detrimental effect on nodule detection performance in chest radiograph images.

No abstract

We investigated methods of analyzing the noise power spectrum (NPS) measurement for medical liquid crystal displays (LCDs). Uniform images displayed on the LCDs were imaged with a high-performance digital camera equipped with a close-up lens, and then the NPSs were calculated from the image data by means of several analysis methods. In a method using the 2D fast Fourier transform (FFT) with a 256 x 256 pixels data segment (basic method), we examined the efficacy of a background trend correction (BTC) and a Hanning windowing process used for reducing the spectral estimation errors in the Fourier analysis. To improve the frequency resolution of the basic method, we examined two 2D FFT methods by using 512 x 512 and 1024 x 1024 pixel segments. In addition, we studied a 1D FFT method with 1024-point 1D noise profiles (1D method). In these three methods, the BTC by a second-order polynomial fit and Hanning windowing were commonly applied. A 3-mega-pixel (MP) and a 5-MP monochrome LCD were employed for evaluating the respective methods. Also, a prototype 5-MP LCD equipped with a new anti-reflection surface-coated panel was compared with the conventional 5-MP LCD. The Hanning windowing process was indispensable for avoiding the spectral leakage errors caused by the pixel structures of the LCD. Sufficient frequency resolution was obtained by the 2D FFT method with the 1024 x 1024 pixels segments and the 1D method. The method which provided the most reliable NPSs was the 1D method, with which the BTC was achieved successfully.

Image evaluation using the ACR phantom is indispensable in quality control of a mammography system. The proposed algorithm is useful for quality control and image evaluation of mammography units.

No abstract

-A modulation-transfer-function (MTF) measurement method that uses a bar-pattern image for medical displays such as liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) and cathode-ray tubes (CRTs) has been investigated. A specific bar-pattern image on the display was acquired with a high-resolution singlelens reflex-type digital camera equipped with a close-up lens. The MTF was calculated from the amplitudes of the fundamental-frequency components, which were extracted from the profile data across the bar patterns by using Fourier analysis. Actual comparisons with the conventional line technique were performed for a medical CRT. The adequate accuracy and excellent reproducibility of the method were confirmed. Furthermore, unlike the line method, an advantageous feature which can use an input signal with sufficient amplitude was theoretically proved. Horizontal and vertical MTFs at the central position of the display area were measured up to the Nyquist frequency for several medical displays. From these measurements, this method has the capability to detect slight differences between the displays measured. This proposed method is useful in understanding and quantifying the medical display's performance due to excellent reproducibility and accuracy.

JapaneseSociety ofRadiologicalTechnology lmprovement of lmage Quality in Chest MDCT Using NonlineaF Wavelet Shrinkage with Trimmed-thresholding{YASUDA,ma-etal)1599