A rank ordered filter for medical image edge enhancement and detection using intuitionistic fuzzy set

This paper gives a novel scheme using intuitionistic fuzzy set theory to enhance the edges of medical images. Medical images contain lots of uncertainties, as they are poorly illuminated and fuzzy/vague in nature. So, direct segmentation techniques will not produce better results. There are lots of researches on edge enhancement starting from non-fuzzy to fuzzy set, but proper enhancement (highlighting important structures) is not obtained. Enhancement of edges helps in recovering the important structures that are not visible properly. Even minute pathological blood vessels/cells are not visible properly and in that case edge enhancement will enhance these blood vessels/cells. Intuitionistic fuzzy set theory is found suitable in medical image processing as it considers more (two) uncertainties as compared to fuzzy set theory. In the processing phase, image is initially converted to intuitionistic fuzzy image and intuitionistic fuzzy entropy is used to obtain the optimum value of the parameter in the membership and non-membership functions. Then it computes the total variation of the pixels with respect to the median value of the image window (rank order filtering). This enhances the borders or the edges of the image. The resulting image is then segmented (edge detected) using standard Canny's edge detector, when simply using Canny's edge detector does not give better result. From the result it is observed that on comparing with non-fuzzy and fuzzy methods, the proposed method gives better information about the images, which is helpful to the pathologists in accurate diagnosing of diseases.

(a) Live_cell_image_2, (b) edge enhanced image using proposed method, (c) edge detected image using Xu's method, (d) edge detected image using proposed IFS method, (e) enhanced image using fuzzy hyperbolization, (f) enhanced image using fuzzy NINT operator.Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slideHighlights
► A novel mathematical model using intuitionistic fuzzy set theory (IFS) that enhances the edges of complex medical images and followed by segmentation (edge detection).
► Medical images are vague due to the presence of uncertainties – difficult to diagnose.
► IFS is suitable as it also considers more number of uncertainties.
► Enhancing the edges helps in proper blood cell/blood vessels counting and detecting abnormal lesions from a poorly illuminated images.
► Results show that the proposed technique detects almost all the live nuclei/blood vessels as compared with the non-fuzzy and fuzzy methods.