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Applied Medical Image Processing, Second Edition: A Basic Course
Wolfgang Birkfellner, 455 pages, ISBN: 978-1-4665-5557-0, chapter are of medical imaging equipment. Perhaps it would CRC Press (March 2014) US$79.95, hardcover. have been useful to also provide more illustrations with exam- Reviewed by Karen Drukker, Univ. of Chicago Medical Center ples of the different types of medical images acquired with each equipment. In part, this is resolved in the new chapter 2, which provides examples of how medical images are used in The main author of this book is Dr. modern clinical practice. The third chapter introduces the Wolfgang Birkfellner (Center for basic concepts of image representation. It introduces the def- Medical Physics and Biomedical inition of pixels and voxels, grayscale and color images, image Engineering, Medical University formats such as DICOM, image quality, and signal-to- Vienna), and coauthors are Johann noise ratio. Hummel (chapter 1), Michael Figl (chap- Chapter 4 describes simple image operations in intensity ter 10), and Ziv Yaniv and Özgür Güler space to enhance image visualization such as windowing (chapter 11). Birkfellner’s main research and contrast adjustment. Chapter 5 describes image operations interest is medical image processing that change the image content and/or enhance it for further for therapeutic applications such as analysis. Topics include image filtering (such as basic smooth- computer-aided surgery and image- ing and sharpening filters), image transformations, and an guided radiation therapy. Dr. Birkfellner has coauthored over introduction to Fourier analysis and frequency filtering. 50 peer-reviewed research papers, several book chapters, and Chapter 6 touches upon image segmentation and introduces 2 books. several metrics of performance for the evaluation of segmen- The first edition of this book was based on the author’s tation quality. Chapter 7 explains basic spatial transforms, such extensive teaching experience in image processing and resulted as rotation and translation, image projection from 3-D to 2-D, from his dissatisfaction with available textbooks. The goals of image interpolation, and image tracking. Chapter 8 deals with the author were to 1) give an overview of relevant basic methods visualization, rendering and surface models, and the hands-on in applied medical image processing, 2) assume little prior examples generate impressive looking 3-D renderings of vari- knowledge except for basic mathematics, physics, and program- ous anatomies. ming, 3) provide tangible examples in addition to theoretical The next two chapters, 9 and 10, are more technical and derivations, and 4) be easily accessible without having to pur- focus on image registration and CT reconstruction, respectively. chase specialized software. These goals were certainly achieved Chapter 9 explains the use of fiduciary markers in image regis- in the first edition (published September 2010), which received tration, compares different registration methods, and describes rave reviews. For example, William Hendee—at that time editor several metrics of performance for evaluation of the image regis- in chief of Medical Physics—noted that “The book . . . achieves tration. Chapter 10 discusses CT image reconstruction using the its purpose very well. The CD adds substantial value to the text Radon transform in the reconstruction of tissue density from and serves as an excellent guide to practice the information x-ray attenuation. Chapter 11 is a new chapter written by Ziv covered in the text. Students who take a course where this Yaniv and Özgür Güler that provides a tutorial to image-guided book is used as the course text will be fortunate indeed.” therapy. This chapter is different from the other chapters in that [Med. Phys. 37, p. 6500 (2010)]. it is almost entirely “hands on” and relies mostly on theory The bulk of the material in the second edition is the same as covered earlier in the book. in the first edition, but the content has been updated and two new While the entire book can be read skipping the “practical les- chapters (chapters 2 and 11) were added. Much thought has been sons” sections, these sections provide a great opportunity for given to the presentation of the material covered in the book. readers to deepen their understanding by applying the just- Each chapter has a summary section, additional references to learned theory to hands-on problems. As in the first edition, the literature, and most chapters also have a “practical lessons” MATLAB® is used in most examples (available on the CD section in which example pseudo code provides a hands-on accompanying the book), but the example code is also suitable learning experience. By design, the depth of the covered for the free MATLAB clone Octave (http://www.gnu.org/ material takes a backseat to the breadth and variety of topics. software/octave/). The second edition also added new examples Each chapter on its own could easily be expanded to fill an entire using the freely available ImageJ (http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/) and book, if not more than one. 3DSlicer (http://www.slicer.org/) applications. The author pre- The first three chapters provide background and basic fers to call the provided MATLAB examples “pseudo code” knowledge, and the remaining chapters delve into image because they do not make use of any of MATLAB’s vector/ processing. The first chapter provides background information matrix capabilities or image-processing toolbox, and hence about the physics behind some clinically used imaging modal- the code is inherently unoptimized. On the other hand, the ities and also includes a section on radiation safety. It touches pseudo code is easily translatable into another language of on image acquisition using, amongst other modalities, x-ray, choice. The example code is very helpful and makes for a CT, MRI, ultrasound, nuclear medicine, and molecular imag- fun learning experience, but one critique is the lack of use of ing modalities. The majority of the photo illustrations in this named variables throughout. For example, instead of specifying
Journal of Medical Imaging 029901-1 Jul–Sep 2014 • Vol. 1(2)
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that an image has nrow ¼ 2364 rows and ncol ¼ 2964 columns, bricks to construct a phantom “patient” and a webcam for the dimensions are hard coded and one is supposed to remember tracking. throughout the example what the numbers 2364 and 2964 mean. In summary, this is a good introductory book to medical This not only makes the hands-on lessons more difficult to fol- image processing that emphasizes hands-on examples and pro- low, but also hampers generalization of the code and doesn’t set vides a nice blend of theory and practice. It is suitable for a good example regarding programming style. The software for graduate students, upper-level undergraduate students, and chapter 11 is written in C++ and is not included on the accom- anyone interested with a sufficient background in mathematics panying CD. Instead, it can be found on www.crcpress.com, and some elementary programming skills. With its glossary of where it is available as an executable application for 3 operating acronyms and extensive index it can also serve as an excellent systems and also as C++ source code. In order to follow the reference book for students and medical imaging scien- examples in this chapter, one also needs LEGO™ (or similar) tists alike.
Journal of Medical Imaging 029901-2 Jul–Sep 2014 • Vol. 1(2)
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