Speckle tracking allows estimating tissue motion with ultrasound. Since tracking quality directly depends on image quality, several preprocessing techniques have been used to improve image quality and ease the tracking problem. The objective of this chapter is therefore to review such techniques and to provide some qualitative guidelines as to in which conditions they should and should not be employed.

Chapter Contents:

• Abstract
• 17.1 Introduction
• 17.2 De-speckling
• 17.3 Feature tracking
• 17.4 Parametric images
• 17.5 Deconvolution
• 17.6 Beamforming
• 17.7 Conclusion
• Acknowledgements
• References

Inspec keywords: medical image processing; object tracking; biological tissues; motion estimation; biomedical ultrasonics; reviews; image filtering

Other keywords: review; image filtering; speckle tracking; image quality; medical ultrasound; tissue motion estimation; tracking quality

Subjects: Sonic and ultrasonic radiation (medical uses); Sonic and ultrasonic radiation (biomedical imaging/measurement); Reviews and tutorial papers; resource letters; Computer vision and image processing techniques; Sonic and ultrasonic applications; Biology and medical computing; Optical, image and video signal processing; Patient diagnostic methods and instrumentation