Image processing in digital radiography: Basic concepts and applications

Digital x-ray images are routinely processed to enhance diagnostic information and to suppress irrelevant detail, and also to extract quantitative information. The basic concepts and terminology of image processing as it applies to x-ray projection radiography are discussed and defined. In general, the processing of an image involves one or more point, local, and/or global operations. Clinical examples of linear and nonlinear gray-scale and algebraic point operations are presented. Examples are also given of local operations. Included in the latter group are distortion corrections, misregistration corrections, linear filtering, and nonlinear filtering.