I. Karagoz et O. Erogul, A new 3-D double window adaptive Hybrid Smoothing Algorithm and its applications to radionuclide images, J IMAG SC T, 43(2), 1999, pp. 134-138
In contrast with most static studies in nuclear medicine, dynamic studies h
ave an inherently high noise level because of low count statistics. Preproc
essing of the raw image data by the application of suitably designed smooth
ing filters, provides a significant contribution to the dynamic studies. Be
cause dynamic studies are 3-D, consisting of two spatial dimensions and tim
e, preprocessing of the raw image data by a specially tailored 3-D filter,
would be expected to fit more precisely and efficiently than the utilizatio
n of conventional 2-D filters. In this study, a new 3-D Double Window Adapt
ive Hybrid Smoothing Algorithm (3-D DWAH filter) is introduced and the resu
lts obtained by its application on the pixel basis dynamic renal scintigrap
hic images are compared with those of the conventional filters and unsmooth
ed raw data. The 3-D DWAH filter effectively and optimally combines the FIR
-Median Hybrid (FMH) and the running mean filters within a variably tuned i
nterval providing a significant improvement in SNR without unacceptable deg
radation of spatial and temporal resolution.