AN ALGORITHM FOR MR-ANGIOGRAPHY IMAGE-ENHANCEMENT

This study describes a three-dimensional (3D) filtering algorithm for magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) image enhancement. Based on the p roperties of 3D MRA data, the algorithm uses the dispersion range of t he 13 outputs of a 3D directional low-pass filter bank to identify the vessel structure and control the processing of MRA data. Vascular str uctures in the data are preserved while the components of static tissu es and isolated noise impulses are reduced by the processing. As a res ult, the small vessels have been enhanced and visibility of vessels in the projected image has been improved.