Finding and describing local structure in discrete two-dimensional computed tomograms

Abstract

DifSerently scaled intensity discontiuities along the gradient direction of scaled oriented contrast edges define significant X-ray CT and MR image structure. Reliable detection and quantitative description of such scaled intensity discontinuities (with a priori unknown relative contrasts, local widths, loci and orientations) is achieved with a scale-space approach. It results in an explicit token representation which can be understood as a compact symbolic description of significant image strucuture, viz a set of quantitative attributes per contrast edge {in contrast to e.g. the wavelet representation). Moreover, a multi-resolution approach is used to reconstruct the image intensity function from the token representation alone using a membrane as prior image model. We present current results from the novel entire processing cascade, which combines a quantitative discontinuity description and a membrane-based intensity reconstruction.