Mammographic Image Enhancement

Its main aim is to process an image by utilizing enhancement techniques so that the enhanced image is better and more suitable than the original image for specific application. The objective of the project is to enhance the mammography image by using Interactive Data Language (IDL) software with some of the selected enhancement technique. In order to obtain the best enhanced image, the mammograms with different setting are prepared and the best mammography image is selected by using manual mode with technical factors 28 kV and 56.3 mAs namely 12 mA tube current and 0.45 second time exposure. This paper highlights four enhancement techniques that are chosen and the variables of each algorithm of the techniques are determined. The enhancement techniques used are image clipping technique with image clipped 21% at low ends and 5% at high ends, filtering technique with low pass filter, unsharp masking technique by creating a mask using a low pass filter and global histogram equalization. There are 24 technique permutations produced by the four enhancement techniques chosen, according to order of the enhancement technique applied on a particular mammographic image. These technique permutations are applied to the image using IDL. The enhancement technique permutation of histogram equalization, unsharp masking technique, filtering technique and image clipping technique, that produce the best enhanced image is determined qualitatively. The results of enhancement techniques by using IDL are presented in brief in this presentation. (Author)