5,786 research outputs found
A Multi-Grid Iterative Method for Photoacoustic Tomography
Inspired by the recent advances on minimizing nonsmooth or bound-constrained
convex functions on models using varying degrees of fidelity, we propose a line
search multigrid (MG) method for full-wave iterative image reconstruction in
photoacoustic tomography (PAT) in heterogeneous media. To compute the search
direction at each iteration, we decide between the gradient at the target
level, or alternatively an approximate error correction at a coarser level,
relying on some predefined criteria. To incorporate absorption and dispersion,
we derive the analytical adjoint directly from the first-order acoustic wave
system. The effectiveness of the proposed method is tested on a total-variation
penalized Iterative Shrinkage Thresholding algorithm (ISTA) and its accelerated
variant (FISTA), which have been used in many studies of image reconstruction
in PAT. The results show the great potential of the proposed method in
improving speed of iterative image reconstruction
Refraction-corrected ray-based inversion for three-dimensional ultrasound tomography of the breast
Ultrasound Tomography has seen a revival of interest in the past decade,
especially for breast imaging, due to improvements in both ultrasound and
computing hardware. In particular, three-dimensional ultrasound tomography, a
fully tomographic method in which the medium to be imaged is surrounded by
ultrasound transducers, has become feasible. In this paper, a comprehensive
derivation and study of a robust framework for large-scale bent-ray ultrasound
tomography in 3D for a hemispherical detector array is presented. Two
ray-tracing approaches are derived and compared. More significantly, the
problem of linking the rays between emitters and receivers, which is
challenging in 3D due to the high number of degrees of freedom for the
trajectory of rays, is analysed both as a minimisation and as a root-finding
problem. The ray-linking problem is parameterised for a convex detection
surface and three robust, accurate, and efficient ray-linking algorithms are
formulated and demonstrated. To stabilise these methods, novel
adaptive-smoothing approaches are proposed that control the conditioning of the
update matrices to ensure accurate linking. The nonlinear UST problem of
estimating the sound speed was recast as a series of linearised subproblems,
each solved using the above algorithms and within a steepest descent scheme.
The whole imaging algorithm was demonstrated to be robust and accurate on
realistic data simulated using a full-wave acoustic model and an anatomical
breast phantom, and incorporating the errors due to time-of-flight picking that
would be present with measured data. This method can used to provide a
low-artefact, quantitatively accurate, 3D sound speed maps. In addition to
being useful in their own right, such 3D sound speed maps can be used to
initialise full-wave inversion methods, or as an input to photoacoustic
tomography reconstructions
Enhancing Compressed Sensing 4D Photoacoustic Tomography by Simultaneous Motion Estimation
A crucial limitation of current high-resolution 3D photoacoustic tomography
(PAT) devices that employ sequential scanning is their long acquisition time.
In previous work, we demonstrated how to use compressed sensing techniques to
improve upon this: images with good spatial resolution and contrast can be
obtained from suitably sub-sampled PAT data acquired by novel acoustic scanning
systems if sparsity-constrained image reconstruction techniques such as total
variation regularization are used. Now, we show how a further increase of image
quality can be achieved for imaging dynamic processes in living tissue (4D
PAT). The key idea is to exploit the additional temporal redundancy of the data
by coupling the previously used spatial image reconstruction models with
sparsity-constrained motion estimation models. While simulated data from a
two-dimensional numerical phantom will be used to illustrate the main
properties of this recently developed
joint-image-reconstruction-and-motion-estimation framework, measured data from
a dynamic experimental phantom will also be used to demonstrate their potential
for challenging, large-scale, real-world, three-dimensional scenarios. The
latter only becomes feasible if a carefully designed combination of tailored
optimization schemes is employed, which we describe and examine in more detail
Joint Reconstruction of Absorbed Optical Energy Density and Sound Speed Distribution in Photoacoustic Computed Tomography: A numerical Investigation
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is a rapidly emerging bioimaging
modality that seeks to reconstruct an estimate of the absorbed optical energy
density within an object. Conventional PACT image reconstruction methods assume
a constant speed-of-sound (SOS), which can result in image artifacts when
acoustic aberrations are significant. It has been demonstrated that
incorporating knowledge of an object's SOS distribution into a PACT image
reconstruction method can improve image quality. However, in many cases, the
SOS distribution cannot be accurately and/or conveniently estimated prior to
the PACT experiment. Because variations in the SOS distribution induce
aberrations in the measured photoacoustic wavefields, certain information
regarding an object's SOS distribution is encoded in the PACT measurement data.
Based on this observation, a joint reconstruction (JR) problem has been
proposed in which the SOS distribution is concurrently estimated along with the
sought-after absorbed optical energy density from the photoacoustic measurement
data. A broad understanding of the extent to which the JR problem can be
accurately and reliably solved has not been reported. In this work, a series of
numerical experiments is described that elucidate some important properties of
the JR problem that pertain to its practical feasibility. To accomplish this,
an optimization-based formulation of the JR problem is developed that yields a
non-linear iterative algorithm that alternatingly updates the two image
estimates. Heuristic analytic insights into the reconstruction problem are also
provided. These results confirm the ill-conditioned nature of the joint
reconstruction problem that will present significant challenges for practical
applications.Comment: 13 pages, submitted to IEEE Transactions on Computational Imagin
Toward quantitative limited-angle ultrasound reflection tomography to inform abdominal HIFU treatment planning
High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (HIFU) is a treatment modality for solid cancers of the liver and pancreas which is non-invasive and free from many of the side-effects of radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The safety and efficacy of abdominal HIFU treatment is dependent on the ability to bring the therapeutic sound waves to a small focal ”lesion” of known and controllable location within the patient anatomy. To achieve this, pre-treatment planning typically includes a numerical simulation of the therapeutic ultrasound beam, in which anatomical compartment locations are derived from computed tomography or magnetic resonance images. In such planning simulations, acoustic properties such as density and speed-of-sound are assumed for the relevant tissues which are rarely, if ever, determined specifically for the patient. These properties are known to vary between patients and disease states of tissues, and to influence the intensity and location of the HIFU lesion. The subject of this thesis is the problem of non-invasive patient-specific measurement of acoustic tissue properties. The appropriate method, also, of establishing spatial correspondence between physical ultrasound transducers and modeled (imaged) anatomy via multimodal image reg-istration is also investigated; this is of relevance both to acoustic tissue property estimation and to the guidance of HIFU delivery itself. First, the principle of a method is demonstrated with which acoustic properties can be recovered for several tissues simultaneously using reflection ultrasound, given accurate knowledge of the physical locations of tissue compartments. Second, the method is developed to allow for some inaccuracy in this knowledge commensurate with the inaccuracy typical in abdominal multimodal image registration. Third, several current multimodal image registration techniques, and two novel modifications, are compared for accuracy and robustness. In conclusion, relevant acoustic tissue properties can, in principle, be estimated using reflected ultrasound data that could be acquired using diagnostic imaging transducers in a clinical setting
Influence of wall thickness and diameter on arterial shear wave elastography: a phantom and finite element study
Quantitative, non-invasive and local measurements of arterial mechanical
properties could be highly beneficial for early diagnosis of cardiovascular
disease and follow up of treatment. Arterial shear wave elastography (SWE)
and wave velocity dispersion analysis have previously been applied to
measure arterial stiffness. Arterial wall thickness (h) and inner diameter (D)
vary with age and pathology and may influence the shear wave propagation.
Nevertheless, the effect of arterial geometry in SWE has not yet been
systematically investigated. In this study the influence of geometry on the
estimated mechanical properties of plates (h = 0.5–3 mm) and hollow
cylinders (h = 1, 2 and 3 mm, D = 6 mm) was assessed by experiments in
phantoms and by finite element method simulations. In addition, simulations
in hollow cylinders with wall thickness difficult to achieve in phantoms
were performed (h = 0.5–1.3 mm, D = 5–8 mm). The phase velocity curves obtained from experiments and simulations were compared in the frequency
range 200–1000 Hz and showed good agreement (R2 = 0.80 ± 0.07 for plates
and R2 = 0.82 ± 0.04 for hollow cylinders). Wall thickness had a larger effect
than diameter on the dispersion curves, which did not have major effects above
400 Hz. An underestimation of 0.1–0.2 mm in wall thickness introduces an
error 4–9 kPa in hollow cylinders with shear modulus of 21–26 kPa. Therefore,
wall thickness should correctly be measured in arterial SWE applications for
accurate mechanical properties estimation
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