Enhanced ultrasound images denoising technique

In ultrasound images, the noise can restrain information which is valuable for the general practitioner. Although sigma fi lter has been shown to be a good solution both in terms of fi ltering accuracy and computational complexity, it depends on estimating both the mean and variance manually. This paper presents an Enhanced Ultrasound Images Denoising (EUID) technique for speckle noise suppression in ultrasound images. This technique estimates automatically speckle noise amount in the ultrasound images by estimating important input parameters of the fi lter and then denoise the image using the sigma fi lter. The experimental results show that the proposed technique is a valuable tool for estimating speckle standard deviation, being accurate, less tedious and preventing typical human errors associated with manual tasks in addition to preserving the edges from the image. A comparative study is made on the performances of the EUID technique and other fi lters in removing the speckles from the image and in preserving the edges.