MULTIDIMENSIONAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PERCEPTUAL QUALITY OF NOISE-REDUCED COMPUTED-TOMOGRAPHY IMAGES

Judging the perceptual quality of processed images is a cognitive proc ess in which the perception of image attributes such as sharpness and noisiness plays an important role. In this paper, we use multidimensio nal scaling to study the perceptual factors that influence the quality impression of Computed Tomography (CT) images processed by a noise-re duction technique. We also characterize intersubject differences in th e assessment of image attributes. We show that multidimensional scalin g can be used reliably for the characterization of the subjective perf ormance of image-processing algorithms, Evaluations using human subjec ts, such as the ones presented in this paper, will continue to play an important role, since objective measures for perceptual image quality , with proven validity in a broad range of applications, are not expec ted in the near future. (C) 1995 Academic Press,Inc.