It has been estimated that one out of every four medical diagnosis in the world involves ultrasound imaging modality because of its noninvasive nature, low cost and capability of forming real time imaging. Ultrasonic imaging extends its application to many fields of medical diagnosis, but the utilization is being unfortunately affected by speckle noise. In this article, an efficient multiscale approach is proposed to reduce speckle, to enhance the edge information and to preserve point and linear features, rather than just inhibiting smoothing. With this approach, the image enhancement is made in three steps: First the image is transformed into Laplacian pyramid domain representation. Second, the pyramid coefficients are manipulated by permutated diffusion, and finally the image is reconstructed from the diffused Laplacian pyramid. New permutated diffusion is proposed for coefficient manipulation for effective speckle reduction and enhancement. The proposed permutated diffusion avoids the blocky effects caused by second-order partial differential equation (PDE) and requires only little iteration compared to fourth-order PDE to converge. In each pyramid layer, a gradient threshold is estimated automatically using robust median estimator. The mean absolute error between two adjacent diffusion steps is used as a stopping criterion. Performance of the proposed approach is compared with the state of the art pyramid based methods. Experiments on synthetic data, simulated phantom and real ultrasound data set indicate effective suppression of speckle, preservation of edge information and their structural details.

One of the most important features of a tourist mapping service is its ability to speed up the process of large image navigation. To achieve this goal, most techniques use interactive compressions such as Multiresolution Seamless Image Database, ERMapper compressed wavelet, and JPEG2000. An alternative approach is proposed in this article using quadtree structures, which allows direct access to information and avoids compression and decompression operations. The proposed strategy is designed to function within a framework of interoperability and integration with the universal search platforms of mapping services. In this study, a photogrammetric image of the entire Andalusia region is used to assess a strategy of cutting and merging images and evaluate the geometric accuracy of the raster data. The proposed approach is shown to result in errors of less than 2.5 m at more than 90% of the control points.

As information technologies have advanced greatly in the recent years, the security problem of information networks becomes all the more important. As a result, biometric identification techniques have been given considerable attention. Fingerprint-related techniques, due to their desirable properties, e.g., universality, perpetuity, collectability, and particularity, are most widely applied and documented. However, in practice, collected fingerprint images are not always of good shape. They often are noisy or contain only partial fingerprints. Therefore, in this article, the authors propose a partial fingerprint comparison technique, called the triangular scheme, to combine with a coefficient of orientation deflection variation and other advancements, to obtain satisfactory matching based on only partial fingerprints. By the proposed scheme, they show that within a wide range of average reliability when the test image and a database image could have only five matched minutia points, the authors have both fault resistance rate and fault acceptance rate error values down to 29%, and the total matching accuracy reaches 71%.

Using an expansion of electrostatic potential in terms of partial solutions of the Poisson equations, a distribution of electrostatic field strength in a two-dimensional (2D) toner transfer system region between the toner and the paper has been calculated. The results have been obtained for a system in which photoreceptor and toner transfer element is a roller with a finite radius. In these calculations, the photoreceptor, the toner, and the paper have been characterized by the values of their thickness and dielectric permittivity. Results have been obtained when the transfer element is flat and when it is shaped as a roller with a finite radius. It is concluded that the one-dimensional (1D) approximation cannot be applied to calculate the electric field when the roller radius is close to or less than the radius of the cylinder-shaped photoreceptor. The limits of applicability of the dielectric thickness have been demonstrated.

Scanner, as a component of multifunction peripheral or standalone device, is widely utilized for document scanning and copying. There are various image quality attributes affecting performance of scanners. This article is focused on quantitative evaluation of color fringe on scanned images. Based on results of interview with participants in human visual experiments, major attributes affecting perceived degrees of color fringe are selected first. Formulas for selected attributes are defined. Proposed evaluation model is constructed as a linear combination of selected attributes by applying linear regression to values of calculated attributes and just noticeable difference scores by human visual experiments. Experimental results indicate that the calculated measures from the proposed model faithfully match with results of human visual experiments.

Most of the color prediction models use a single dot gain curve for each primary ink. In the proposed model, the behavior of the dot gain of each primary ink is characterized by three curves based on CIEXYZ tristimulus values. In our previous works, it was shown that the usage of three characterization curves for each primary ink reduced the color difference between the predicted and measured data compared with the simple Yule–Nielsen model. In this article, an effective coverage map based on CIEXYZ is created. This map presents the effective coverage values of the primary inks corresponding to different ink combinations. Given any reference ink combination, the effective coverage values of the involved primary inks are estimated by cubic interpolation. Compared to our previous models, the proposed model gives significant reduction in the color difference between the predicted and the measured data.

Due to the advancement in inkjet digital printing, it is possible to print spot color short run jobs with high quality and desired level of consistency in color at low cost. Mostly in the packaging industry, specific color is used for specific requirements of a customer, which is called a spot color. About 40% of packaging jobs are printed by flexo, 30% by offset lithography, 22% by rotogravure, and 8% by digital and other printing processes. The aim and purpose of this work was to investigate the proof color matching capability of two ink jet digital printers, differing in ink technology and prepress color matching software used, for spot color matching printed on a narrow web flexographic printing press. The results were produced by evaluating color differences between the colorimetric measurements from the flexographic printing press versus the digitally reproduced proofs from the two tested ink jet devices.