Parallel Image Processing: Taking Grayscale Conversion Using OpenMP as an Example

In recent years, the widespread adoption of parallel computing, especially in multi-core processors and high-performance computing environments, ushered in a new era of efficiency and speed. This trend was particularly noteworthy in the field of image processing, which witnessed significant advancements. This parallel computing project explored the field of parallel image processing, with a focus on the grayscale conversion of colorful images. Our approach involved integrating OpenMP into our framework for parallelization to execute a critical image processing task: grayscale conversion. By using OpenMP, we strategically enhanced the overall performance of the conversion process by distributing the workload across multiple threads. The primary objectives of our project revolved around optimizing computation time and improving overall efficiency, particularly in the task of grayscale conversion of colorful images. Utilizing OpenMP for concurrent processing across multiple cores significantly reduced execution times through the effective distribution of tasks among these cores. The speedup values for various image sizes highlighted the efficacy of parallel processing, especially for large images. However, a detailed examination revealed a potential decline in parallelization efficiency with an increasing number of cores. This underscored the importance of a carefully optimized parallelization strategy, considering factors like load balancing and minimizing communication overhead. Despite challenges, the overall scalability and efficiency achieved with parallel image processing underscored OpenMP’s effectiveness in accelerating image manipulation tasks.

Impact of computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging registration on rehabilitation after percutaneous endoscopic decompression for lumbar stenosis: Retrospective study

BACKGROUND Percutaneous endoscopic lumbar decompression(PELD)shows promise for lumbar spinal stenosis(LSS)treatment,but its use is limited by the disease's complexity and procedural challenges.AIM In this study,the effects of preoperative planning and intraoperative guidance with computed tomography(CT)/magnetic resonance imaging(MRI)registration techniques on PELD for LSS and postoperative rehabilitation outcomes were evaluated.METHODS This retrospective study was conducted with data from patients who underwent PELD for LSS between January 2021 and December 2023.Patients were assigned to preoperative CT/MRI registration and control groups.Data collected included the operative time,length of hospital stay,visual analog scale(VAS)scores for low back and leg pain,and the Japanese Orthopaedic Association(JOA)lumbar spine score.Differences between groups were assessed using Student’s t test.RESULTS Data from 135 patients(71 in the CT/MRI registration group,64 in the control group)were analyzed.The operative time was significantly shorter in the CT/MRI registration group(P=0.007).At 2 months postoperatively,both groups showed significant reductions in VAS leg and low back pain scores(all P<0.001)and improvements in the JOA score(both P<0.001).No complication or death occurred.Preoperatively,pain and JOA scores were similar between groups(P=0.830,P=0.470,and P=0.287,respectively).At 2 months postoperatively,patients in the CT/MRI registration group reported lower leg and low back pain levels(P<0.001 and P=0.001,respectively)and had higher JOA scores(P=0.004)than did patients in the control group.CONCLUSION Preoperative CT/MRI registration for PELD for LSS reduced the operative time and VAS pain scores at 2 months and improved JOA scores,demonstrating enhanced effectiveness and safety.

Exploration of computerized image processing in underexposed and overexposed X-rays of bones and joints

Objective: To study the effective computerized image processing of underexposed and overexposed X-rays of bones and joints. Methods: Ninety-nine conventional X-ray images (82 were overexposed and 17 were underexposed),scanned by an UMAX Astra 4000U Scanner, were converted into digital images on the basis of their analog images. A computerized imaging processing program consisting of five functional modules such as Contrast Stretch, Fast Flourier Transform (FFT), Image Smoothing Modules, Inverse Fast Flourier Transform (IFFT) and Nonlinear Transform performed image contrast stretch and smoothing. Three senior doctors from hospital image sections made their evaluation of all the processed images. Results: Of 82 overexposed films, 71 met the clinical requirements after image processing, and 11 were unable to be applied to clinical diagnosis, accounting for 87% and 13% respectively. Of the other 17 underexposed X-ray images, 11 met the clinical requirements while 6 were not, making a percentage of 64 and 35. Conclusion: Image contrast stretch and smoothing processing are significantly effective on conventional X-ray images which were inappropriately exposed, and can avoid more X-ray radiation caused by handling of radiological photograph again. This method can decrease hospital cost and provide acute and effective X-ray examinations for the treatment and cure for critical patients.

New multi-DSP parallel computing architecture for real-time image processing

The flexibility of traditional image processing system is limited because those system are designed for specific applications. In this paper, a new TMS320C64x-based multi-DSP parallel computing architecture is presented. It has many promising characteristics such as powerful computing capability, broad I/O bandwidth, topology flexibility, and expansibility. The parallel system performance is evaluated by practical experiment.

Use of high-resolution X-ray computed tomography and 3D image analysis to quantify mineral dissemination and pore space in oxide copper ore particles

Mineral dissemination and pore space distribution in ore particles are important features that influence heap leaching performance. To quantify the mineral dissemination and pore space distribution of an ore particle, a cylindrical copper oxide ore sample (I center dot 4.6 mm x 5.6 mm) was scanned using high-resolution X-ray computed tomography (HRXCT), a nondestructive imaging technology, at a spatial resolution of 4.85 mu m. Combined with three-dimensional (3D) image analysis techniques, the main mineral phases and pore space were segmented and the volume fraction of each phase was calculated. In addition, the mass fraction of each mineral phase was estimated and the result was validated with that obtained using traditional techniques. Furthermore, the pore phase features, including the pore size distribution, pore surface area, pore fractal dimension, pore centerline, and the pore connectivity, were investigated quantitatively. The pore space analysis results indicate that the pore size distribution closely fits a log-normal distribution and that the pore space morphology is complicated, with a large surface area and low connectivity. This study demonstrates that the combination of HRXCT and 3D image analysis is an effective tool for acquiring 3D mineralogical and pore structural data.

Pore structure of ore granular media by computerized tomography image processing

The pore structure images of ore particles located at different heights of leaching column were scanned with X-ray computerized tomography (CT) scanner, the porosity and pore size distribution were calculated and the geometrical shape and connectivity of pores were analyzed based on image process method, and the three dimensional reconstruction of pore structure images was realized. The results show that the porosity of ore particles bed in leaching column is 42.92%, 41.72%, 39.34% at top, middle and bottom zone, respectively. Obviously it has spatial variability and decreases appreciably along the height of the column. The overall average porosity obtained by image processing is 41.33% while the porosity gotten from general measurement method in laboratory is 42.77% showing the results of both methods are consistent well. The pore structure of ore granular media is characterized as a dynamical space network composed of interconnected pore bodies and pore throats. The ratio of throats with equivalent diameter less than 1.91 mm to the total pores is 29.31%, and that of the large pores with equivalent diameter more than 5.73 mm is 2.90%.

Spatial resolution and image processing for pinhole camera-based X-ray fluorescence imaging: a simulation study

Spatial resolution and image-processing methods for full-field X-ray fluorescence(FF-XRF)imaging using X-ray pinhole cameras were studied using Geant4simulations with different geometries and algorithms for image reconstruction.The main objectives were:(1)calculating the quantum efficiency curves of specific cameras,(2)studying the relationships between the spatial resolution and the pinhole diameter,magnification,and camera binning value,and(3)comparing image-processing methods for pinhole camera systems.Several results were obtained using a point and plane source as the X-ray fluorescence emitter and an array of 100×100 silicon pixel detectors as the X-ray camera.The quantum efficiency of a back-illuminated deep depletion(BI-DD)structure was above 30%for the XRF energies in the 0.8–9 keV range,with the maximum of 93.7%at 4 keV.The best spatial resolution of the pinhole camera was 24.7μm and 31.3 lp/mm when measured using the profile function of the point source,with the diameter of 20μm,magnification of 3.16,and camera bin of 1.A blind deconvolution algorithm with Gaussian filtering performed better than the Wiener filter and Richardson iterative methods on FF-XRF images,with the signal-to-noise ratio of 7.81 dB and improved signalto-noise ratio of 7.24 dB at the diameter of 120μm,magnification of 1.0,and camera bin of 1.

Implementation of Shock Filter for Digital X-Ray Image Processing

X-ray image might be corrupted by noise or blurring because of signal transmission or the bad X- ray lens. This paper presents a two-stage shock filter based on Partial Differential Equations (PDE) to restore noisy blurred X-ray image. Shock filters are popular morphological methods. They are used for noise removal, edge enhancement and image segmentation. Our experimental results show that the performances of shock filter are excellent in X-ray image. The peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) values are 38 dB at least in restoring the noisy X-ray image. The sharpness of image’s edges increase in enhancing the blurred X-ray image. Furthermore, this paper proposes a VLSI architecture for accelerating the high-definition (HD) X-ray image (944 p) process. This paper implements the architecture in FPGA. The hardware cost is low because the computation of shock filter is low complex. To achieve the real-time processing specification, this paper uses a 5-series shock filter architecture to implement computation of HD X-ray image. This paper demonstrates a 944 p, 43.1-fps solution on 100 MHz with 133 k gate counts in Design Compiler, and with 2904 logic elements in FPGA.

3D characterization and analysis of pore structure of packed ore particle beds based on computed tomography images

Methods and procedures of three-dimensional （3D） characterization of the pore structure features in the packed ore particle bed are focused. X-ray computed tomography was applied to deriving the cross-sectional images of specimens with single particle size of 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5, 5-6, 6-7, 7-8, 8-9, 9-10 ram. Based on the in-house developed 3D image analysis programs using Matlab, the volume porosity, pore size distribution and degree of connectivity were calculated and analyzed in detail. The results indicate that the volume porosity, the mean diameter of pores and the effective pore size （d50） increase with the increasing of particle size. Lognormal distribution or Gauss distribution is mostly suitable to model the pore size distribution. The degree of connectivity investigated on the basis of cluster-labeling algorithm also increases with increasing the particle size approximately.

Underwater image clarifying based on human visual colour constancy using double-opponency

Underwater images are often with biased colours and reduced contrast because of the absorption and scattering effects when light propagates in water.Such images with degradation cannot meet the needs of underwater operations.The main problem in classic underwater image restoration or enhancement methods is that they consume long calcu-lation time,and often,the colour or contrast of the result images is still unsatisfied.Instead of using the complicated physical model of underwater imaging degradation,we propose a new method to deal with underwater images by imitating the colour constancy mechanism of human vision using double-opponency.Firstly,the original image is converted to the LMS space.Then the signals are linearly combined,and Gaussian convolutions are per-formed to imitate the function of receptive fields(RFs).Next,two RFs with different sizes work together to constitute the double-opponency response.Finally,the underwater light is estimated to correct the colours in the image.Further contrast stretching on the luminance is optional.Experiments show that the proposed method can obtain clarified underwater images with higher quality than before,and it spends significantly less time cost compared to other previously published typical methods.

Image processing algorithm acceleration using reconfigurable macro processor model

The concept and advantage of reconfigurable technology is introduced. A kind of processor architecture of re configurable macro processor (RMP) model based on FPGA array and DSP is put forward and has been implemented. Two image algorithms are developed: template-based automatic target recognition and zone labeling. One is estimating for motion direction in the infrared image background, another is line picking-up algorithm based on image zone labeling and phase grouping technique. It is a kind of 'hardware' function that can be called by the DSP in high-level algorithm. It is also a kind of hardware algorithm of the DSP. The results of experiments show the reconfigurable computing technology based on RMP is an ideal accelerating means to deal with the high-speed image processing tasks. High real time performance is obtained in our two applications on RMP.

Automatic Detection of Steel Ball's Surface Flaws Based on Image Processing

A new method to detect steel ball's surface flaws is presented based on computer techniques of image processing and pattern recognition. The steel ball's surface flaws is the primary factor causing bearing failure. The high efficient and precision detections for the surface flaws of steel ball can be conducted by the presented method, including spot, abrasion, burn, scratch and crack, etc. The design of main components of the detecting system is described in detail including automatic feeding mechanism, automatic spreading mechanism of steel ball's surface, optical system of microscope, image acquisition system, image processing system. The whole automatic system is controlled by an industrial control computer, which can carry out the recognition of flaws of steel ball's surface effectively.

Study on the Medical Image Distributed Dynamic Processing Method

To meet the challenge of implementing rapidly advanced, time-consuming medical image processing algorithms, it is necessary to develop a medical image processing technology to process a 2D or 3D medical image dynamically on the web. But in a premier system, only static image processing can be provided with the limitation of web technology. The development of Java and CORBA (common object request broker architecture) overcomes the shortcoming of the web static application and makes the dynamic processing of medical images on the web available. To develop an open solution of distributed computing, we integrate the Java, and web with the CORBA and present a web-based medical image dynamic processing methed, which adopts Java technology as the language to program application and components of the web and utilies the CORBA architecture to cope with heterogeneous property of a complex distributed system. The method also provides a platform-independent, transparent processing architecture to implement the advanced image routines and enable users to access large dataset and resources according to the requirements of medical applications. The experiment in this paper shows that the medical image dynamic processing method implemented on the web by using Java and the CORBA is feasible.

Automatic Traffic Using Image Processing

The frequent traffic jams at major intersections call for an effective management system. The paper suggests implementing a smart traffic controller using real-time image processing. The sequence of the camera is analyzed using different edge detection algorithms and object counting methods. Previously they used matching method that means the camera will be installed along with traffic light. It will capture the image sequence. To set an image of an empty road as a reference image, the captured images are sequentially matched using image matching;but in my paper, we used filtering method, which filtered the image and released all waste objects and only showed the cars, and after it well showed the number of cars in image. My paper is software that takes a picture or video. It has been customized to be used in the future to control the traffic light sign by giving each sign sufficient time, depending on the number of cars on each direction.

Hadoop and Its Role in Modern Image Processing

This paper introduces MapReduce as a distributed data processing model using open source Hadoop framework for manipulating large volume of data. The huge volume of data in the modern world, particularly multimedia data, creates new requirements for processing and storage. As an open source distributed computational framework, Hadoop allows for processing large amounts of images on an infinite set of computing nodes by providing necessary infrastructures. This paper introduces this framework, current works and its advantages and disadvantages.

Medical Image Dynamic Collaborative Processing on the Distributed Environment

A new trend in the development of medical image processing systems is to enhance the shar-ing of medical resources and the collaborative processing of medical specialists. This paper presents an architecture of medical image dynamic collaborative processing on the distributed environment by combining the JAVA, CORBA (Common Object Request and Broker Architecture) and the MAS (Multi-Agents System) collaborative mechanism. The architecture allows medical specialists or applications to share records and cornmunicate with each other on the web by overcoming the shortcut of traditional approach using Common Gateway Interface (CGI) and client/server architecture, and can support the remote heterogeneous systems collaboration. The new approach im-proves the collaborative processing of medical data and applications and is able to enhance the in-teroperation among heterogeneous system. Research on the system will help the collaboration and cooperation among medical application systems distributed on the web, thus supply high quality medical service such as diagnosis and therapy to practicing specialists regardless of their actual geo-graphic location.

Using Graphics Processing Units to Parallelize the FDK Algorithm for Tomographic Image Reconstruction

The paper presents the implementation of a parallel version of FDK （Felkamp, David e Kress） algorithm using graphics processing units. Discussion was briefly some elements the computed tomographic scan and FDK algorithm; and some ideas about GPUs （Graphics Processing Units） and its use in general purpose computing were presented. The paper shows a computational implementation of FDK algorithm and the process of parallelization of this implementation. Compare the parallel version of the algorithm with the sequential version, used speedup as a performance metric. To evaluate the performance of parallel version, two GPUs, GeForce 9400GT （16 cores） a low capacity GPU and Quadro 2000 （192 cores） a medium capacity GPU was reached speedup of 3.37.

Sonar Image Processing System for an Autonomous Underwater Vehicle(AUV)

Sonar image processing system is an important intelligent system of Autonomous Un-derwater Vehicle.Based on TMS320C30 high speed DSP,it is used to realize sonar imagecompression and underwater object detections including obstacle recognition in real time.Inthis paper,the software and hardware designs of this system are introduced and the experi-mental results are given.

APPLICATION OF MVP IN REAL TIME IMAGE PROCESSING

MVP is a digital signal processor, which is of MIMD structure and fit for multimedia application. MVP has several processors in it, and its operation is characteristic of parallelism and pipeline; therefore, real-time signal processing can be done on it. This paper presents the image processing system based on MVP, explains the principles of parallel task assignment and hardware pipeline design, and gives out the example of target tracking and edge detection.

Animal Classification System Based on Image Processing &Support Vector Machine

This project is mainly focused to develop system for animal researchers & wild life photographers to overcome so many challenges in their day life today. When they engage in such situation, they need to be patiently waiting for long hours, maybe several days in whatever location and under severe weather conditions until capturing what they are interested in. Also there is a big demand for rare wild life photo graphs. The proposed method makes the task automatically use microcontroller controlled camera, image processing and machine learning techniques. First with the aid of microcontroller and four passive IR sensors system will automatically detect the presence of animal and rotate the camera toward that direction. Then the motion detection algorithm will get the animal into middle of the frame and capture by high end auto focus web cam. Then the captured images send to the PC and are compared with photograph database to check whether the animal is exactly the same as the photographer choice. If that captured animal is the exactly one who need to capture then it will automatically capture more. Though there are several technologies available none of these are capable of recognizing what it captures. There is no detection of animal presence in different angles. Most of available equipment uses a set of PIR sensors and whatever it disturbs the IR field will automatically be captured and stored. Night time images are black and white and have less details and clarity due to infrared flash quality. If the infrared flash is designed for best image quality, range will be sacrificed. The photographer might be interested in a specific animal but there is no facility to recognize automatically whether captured animal is the photographer’s choice or not.