4D KAPPA5 GAUSSIAN NOISE REDUCTION

The noise reduction system of the present invention takes into account that noise is random with little between images adjacent physically, and in sampling time. It also takes into account the fact that some sequences of images are cyclical and "wrap around" in time with the beginning closely resembling the end of the cycle. A filter was developed which would smooth noise in a direction along an edge, but will not blur across an edge. It operates by determining vectors tangential to a surface point p, at a current voxel, and projecting 4D data onto the tangential vectors. A curvature matrix B.sub..alpha..beta. is determined. The eigenvalues of curvature matrix B.sub..alpha..beta. are determined to result in three curvatures for 4 dimensions. If the sign of all of the eigenvalues is the same, the current voxel is filtered, else, it is unchanged. This filtering is repeated for a number of voxels as the current voxel within a desired region for a single iteration. Preferably, this is repeated for several iterations to result in filtered data with reduced noise and little change in detail. The filtered data may then be segmented to separate structures. The segmented structures may then be used in analysis, such as in medical diagnosis.