X-ray Image Enhancement Based on Adaptive Gradient Domain Guided Image Filtering

Due to the contrast of X-ray images being low, significant elements including organs, bones, and nodules are very difficult to identify, so contrast enhancement is necessary. In this paper, an X-ray image enhancement algorithm based on adaptive gradient domain guided image filtering is proposed. The amplification factor in the gradient domain guided image filtering needs to be set manually; it needs to constantly adjust the parameters to achieve the best enhancement effect, and this also increases the computational complexity. In order to solve this problem, an adaptive amplification factor is defined in this paper, and the proposed algorithm is applied to the X-ray image enhancement. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is superior to state-of-the art algorithms in terms of detail enhancement and edge-preserving.