A novel super-resolution reconstruction (SRR) framework in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is proposed. Its purpose is to produce images of both high resolution and high contrast desirable for image-guided minimally invasive brain surgery. The input data are multiple 2-D multislice inversion recovery MRI scans acquired at orientations with regular angular spacing rotated around a common frequency encoding axis. The output is a 3-D volume of isotropic high resolution. The inversion process resembles a localized projection reconstruction problem. Iterative algorithms for reconstruction are based on the projection onto convex sets (POCS) formalism. Results demonstrate resolution enhancement in simulated phantom studies, and ex vivo and in vivo human brain scans, carried out on clinical scanners. A comparison with previously published SRR methods shows favorable characteristics in the proposed approach.

The application of compressive sensing (CS) for imaging has been extensively investigated and the underlying mathematical principles are well understood. The theory of CS is motivated by the sparse nature of real-world signals and images, and provides a framework in which high-resolution information can be recovered from low-resolution measurements. This, in turn, enables hardware concepts that require much fewer detectors than a conventional sensor. For infrared imagers there is a significant potential impact on the cost and footprint of the sensor. When smaller focal plane arrays (FPAs) to obtain large images are allowed, large formats FPAs are unnecessary. From a hardware standpoint, this benefit is independent of the actual level of compression and effective data rate reduction, which depend on the choice of codes and information recovery algorithm. Toward this end, we used a CS testbed for mid-wave infrared (MWIR) to experimentally show that information at high spatial resolution can be successfully recovered from measurements made with a small FPA. We describe the highly parallel and scalable CS architecture of the testbed, and its implementation using a reflective spatial light modulator and a focal plane array with variable pixel sizes. We also discuss the impact of real-world devices and the effect of sensor calibration that must be addressed in practice. Finally, we present preliminary results of image reconstruction, which demonstrate the testbed operation. These results experimentally confirm that high-resolution spatial information (for tasks such as imaging and target detection) can be successfully recovered from low-resolution measurements. We also discuss the potential system-level benefits of CS for infrared imaging, and some of the challenges that must be addressed in future infrared CS imagers designs.

A comparison study is presented of two methods for MRI reconstruction using super-resolution techniques which combine multiple multi-slice stacks into a single highresolution 3-D image volume. Sampling configurations are compared involving stacks with parallel orientations at different sub-pixel offset locations, and stacks with regularly distributed slice orientations. Results from experiments with simulated and real MRI data suggest that different stack orientations perform better than parallel stacks.

No abstract

No abstract