Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an interferometric, noninvasive and non contact imaging technique that generates images of biological tissues at micrometer scale resolution. Images obtained from the OCT process are often noisy and of low visual contrast level. This work focuses on improving the visual contrast of OCT images using digital enhancement and fusion techniques. Since OCT images are often corrupted with noise, our first approach is to use the most effective noise reduction algorithm. This process is followed by a series of digital enhancement techniques that are suitable to enhance the visual contrast of the OCT images. We also investigate any gain in visual contrast if combined enhancement is employed. In the image fusion methods, images taken at different depths are fused together using discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and logical fusion algorithms. We answer the question of it is more efficient to enhance images before or after fusion. This work concludes by suggesting future work needed to complement the current one.

Date Published: 15 April 2010
PDF: 6 pages
Proc. SPIE 7701, Visual Information Processing XIX, 770108 (15 April 2010); doi: 10.1117/12.852505

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 7701:
Visual Information Processing XIX
Zia-ur Rahman; Stephen E. Reichenbach; Mark A. Neifeld, Editor(s)