Denoising algorithm for dynamic digital X-ray image sequences and its fast implementation

In order to realize the fast noise reduction in the dynamic digital radiography (DR) imaging system, the system's noise characteristics and the disadvantages of the original NL-means denoising algorithm were studied. An improved NL-means noise reduction algorithm was proposed. Meanwhile, in order to solve its calculation complexity problem, graphic processing unit (GPU) was applied to make use of its high parallel and fast floating-point calculation abilities. In the implementation, the image was mapped to the GPU's texture and multi-thread parallel calculation was adopted. The experimental results showed that the improved NL-means noise reduction algorithm could effectively restrain the quantum noise and improve the resolution of DR image sequences. In addition, the acceleration with GPU could realize the real-time denoising without the loss of image information.