British Journal of Radiology 74 (2001),69-72 © 2001 The British Institute of Radiology
A digital frame of reference for viewing digital images
D S Brettle, MSc, MIPEM
Department of Medical Physics & Engineering, Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Lincoln Wing, St James's University Hospital, Beckett Street, Leeds LS9 7TF, UK
Digital imaging is becoming widespread in diagnostic radiology. Most diagnostic digital images do not relate explicitly to the physical processes involved in their generation but are, in essence, a "pseudo" image generated from digital data using pre- and post-processing. Without knowledge of how the image was generated, there is a potential to misinterpret the image data. A new design of digitally generated graphic is presented that is intended to help maintain the frame of reference when viewing digitally processed images. The intention is that the digital frame of reference (DFOR) be included with all digitally processed images and be processed using the same factors as were used on the image. An unprocessed DFOR can then be displayed adjacent to the processed DFOR to re-introduce a frame of reference and to clearly illustrate the effect of any processes that have been applied to the image. This would allow the viewer to perceive any artefacts that may have been introduced into the image by the processing. This is particularly important where the image requires interpretation by the viewer, as in medical diagnosis. This paper presents a grey scale version of the DFOR that is suitable for applications such as medical imaging. The DFOR includes: grey scale from 0 to the maximum bit depth in 0%, 30%, 70% and 100% steps on a 50% background; the full frequency range from 0 to the Nyquist frequency; high, medium and low contrast boundaries; and linear/curvilinear features. The same method could be extended to any other digital image system and could be easily modified to include colour.
Copyright © 2001 by the British Institute of Radiology.
