| EPSRC Reference: |
EP/H02865X/1 |
| Title: |
Image Reconstruction: the Sparse Way |
| Principal Investigator: |
Betcke, Dr MM |
| Other Investigators: |
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| Department: |
Computer Science |
| Organisation: |
UCL |
| Scheme: |
Postdoc Research Fellowship |
| Starts: |
01 June 2010 |
Ends: |
30 November 2013 |
Value (£): |
278,847
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| EPSRC Research Topic Classifications: |
| Med.Instrument.Device& Equip. |
Numerical Analysis |
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| EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications: |
| No relevance to Underpinning Sectors |
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Summary on Grant Application Form |
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The ability to image the inside of an object is one of the driving forces of scientific progress. Applications occur in almost all areas of science and engineering, including the whole of medical imaging, non-destructive testing, geophysics and material science. In industry imaging is frequently employed for process monitoring and quality assurance. A further important application is security monitoring like for instance airport luggage screening.Medical imaging is the application which affects the general public the most. In medicine a wide range of imaging modalities is used to assist the diagnosis. Commonly used techniques include Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and X-ray Computed Tomography (CT). Unfortunately, even using state-of-the-art imaging equipment these procedures can be either very time consuming, as in the case of an MRI scan or the patient is exposed to ionising radiation which is potentially harmful, like in CT. Both procedures would greatly benefit from reducing the number of measurements, which are necessary to reconstruct the image without compromising its diagnostic value. This almost sounds like a lost cause but it turns out it is not!Think about compression algorithms such as JPEG, which allow to significantly reduce the size of an image and later are able to restore it seemingly without visual losses. We say images are compressible. Compression standards like JPEG exploit this fact by efficiently representing images with significantly fewer numbers than the number of pixels in the original image. Mathematically, this is achieved by representing the image in a basis in which most of its coefficients are so small that they can be set to zero without visibly diminishing the quality of the image. We call such a representation sparse.Would it not be great if one could directly acquire an image in this compact representation?In recent years this question has been affirmatively answered. It turns out that under certain assumptions it is indeed possible to make such compressed measurements and to subsequently recover the image almost completely. For applications like MRI and CT this means shorter scanning times and reduced radiation exposure.However, to be able to benefit from this new sensing paradigm it is necessary to modify both, the measurement procedure and the reconstructing algorithm. This fellowship addressed exactly this problem for a wide range of imaging modalities including, CT, Tomosynthesis and Optical Tomography. It develops new ways of data acquisition and new algorithms to reconstruct the image from this data. It addresses some fundamental issues concerned with the conditions on the design of the measurement and limits of what is feasible under these conditions. It explores ways of further improving the reconstruction by incorporating prior knowledge on the object. The new Sparse Way of imaging has the potential to push boundaries of what is achievable at present in terms of resolution, data acquisition time, and radiation dose. In close collaboration with experimentalists at UCL the developed methodology will be tested on real-life applications. The research will benefit from collaboration with leading experts in the field and Rapiscan Systems, manufacturer of a wide range of security monitoring equipment.Imaging is an essential technology in science and engineering. Advances in many areas depend on a steady progress of existing imaging techniques and the development of novel approaches. The research community working on sparsity-enhanced imaging has been steadily growing over the last couple of years and it has the potential to take the lead in the more general field of imaging in the future. This fellowship will be at the forefront of this exciting research area, addressing timely and relevant real-life problems. It will strengthen the expertise of the UK in image reconstruction by delivering contributions, which will have a major impact in the field.
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Key Findings |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Potential use in non-academic contexts |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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Impacts |
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| Description |
This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk |
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Sectors submitted by the Researcher |
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This information can now be found on Gateway to Research (GtR) http://gtr.rcuk.ac.uk
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