IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 17, NO.

4, AUGUST 1998 541

Characterization of Visually Similar Diffuse Diseases

from B-Scan Liver Images Using Nonseparable
Wavelet Transform
Aleksandra Mojsilović,* Miodrag Popović, Member, IEEE, Srdjan Marković, and Miodrag Krstić

Abstract— This paper describes a new approach for texture

characterization, based on nonseparable wavelet decomposition,
and its application for the discrimination of visually similar
diffuse diseases of liver. The proposed feature-extraction algo-
rithm applies nonseparable quincunx wavelet transform and uses
energies of the transformed regions to characterize textures.
Classification experiments on a set of three different tissue types
show that the scale/frequency approach, particularly one based
on the nonseparable wavelet transform, could be a reliable
method for a texture characterization and analysis of B-scan liver
images. Comparison between the quincunx and the traditional
wavelet decomposition suggests that the quincunx transform
is more appropriate for characterization of noisy data, and
practical applications, requiring description with lower rotational
sensitivity.
Index Terms— Classification, quincunx sampling, texture,
wavelet transform.

I. INTRODUCTION

D IAGNOSTIC ultrasound has been an useful clinical tool

for imaging organs and soft tissues in the human body,
for more than two decades [1]. Currently, one of its impor-
tant applications is imaging of the liver, and many methods
for differentiation between normal and abnormal tissues are
based on the examination of B-scan images. However, for
diagnosing diffuse diseases, such as cirrhosis, particularly in
its early phase, steatosis, or hepatitis, clinical ultrasound is
not reliable enough, and accurate identification is usually
performed by needle biopsy. Although these diffuse diseases
are quite different, the main obstacle for diagnosing them
is very subtle visual difference between their sonograms.
For example, echosonographic images of steatosis and early
cirrhosis are very similar and it is very difficult, even for
an experienced clinician, to perform the diagnosis about the
existence, type, and the level of a disease. Therefore, a reliable
noninvasive method for early detection and differentiation of
these two diseases is clearly desirable. One possible approach
can be found in texture analysis, because steatosis and cirrhosis
Manuscript received April 29, 1997; revised July 21, 1998. The Associate
Editor responsible for coordinating the review of this paper and recommending
its publication was A. Manduca. Asterisk indicates corresponding author.
*A. Mojsilović is with Bell Laboratories, Lucent Technologies, 600 Moun-
tain Avenue, Murray Hill, NJ 07972 USA (e-mail: saska@research.bell-
labs.com).
M. Popović and S. Marković are with the School of Electrical Engineering,
University of Belgrade, 11011 Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
M. Kristić is with the Institute for Digestive Diseases, Clinical Center of
Serbia, 11011 Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
Publisher Item Identifier S 0278-0062(98)08545-0.
0278–0062/98$10.00  1998 IEEE
Fig. 1. Liver tissue samples taken from different patients and from different
parts of liver. First row: normal tissue samples; second row: cirrhosis samples;
third row: steatosis samples.
produce different changes in acoustical properties of the liver
tissue, which can be detected by ultrasound as a textural pattern
different from the normal one (see Fig. 1). In addition to visual
interpretation of B-scan images, texture data indicating the
possible presence and the extent of illness, could provide more
reliable diagnosis, and may eventually help to avoid the use of
biopsy for identifying diffuse liver diseases. Many researchers
have studied the problem of liver tissue classification [2]–[11].
Initial attempts to characterize diffuse diseases have utilized
different signal processing techniques in order to obtain useful
information from the raw radio-frequency signal [2], [3]. In
a series of papers, Momenan et al. showed that second-
order statistical parameters from envelope-detected or intensity
echo signals have discriminatory power in human liver [4],
[5]. Some researchers have treated the task of liver tissue
quantification from the point of description and classification
with numerical texture measures. Nicholas et al. were among
the first who used textural features of the B-scan images,
showing their potential to discriminate between livers and
spleens of normal humans [6]. Wu et al. [7] have applied
fractal-based statistics and compared them with other texture
measures, for distinguishing between hepatoma, cirrhosis, and
542 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 17, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998

normal liver. In [8], Gebbinck et al. applied discriminant

analysis and supervised and unsupervised neural networks,
and tested their ability to detect various types of diffuse liver
diseases. The methods showed high discrimination ability in
binary classification tasks (i.e., diseased versus normal liver),
but in simultaneous classification of all diseases classification
accuracy has decreased. In [9], Paik and Fox have proposed
Hartley-transform-based texture measures to detect abnormal
liver patterns, but insufficient data demonstrating the accuracy (a)
of that technique has been reported. On the other hand, Kadah
et al. [10] have emphasized the classification aspect in the
diagnosis of diffuse diseases. They have investigated the use
of well-known quantitative classification techniques and eval-
uated their performance in liver tissue classification. We have
previously shown that the scale/frequency approach based
on the separable wavelet transform is appropriate feature-
extraction method for the analysis of ultrasound textures [11],
[12]. This paper investigates the application and advantages
of the nonseparable wavelet transform features for liver tissue (b)
characterization, compares the approach with other texture Fig. 2. (a) Separable and (b) quincunx lattice in the spatial and frequency
measures, and finally, addresses several questions about the domains. Dark area indicates the Voronoi cell. In the case of perfect recon-
struction filter banks based on quincunx sampling, the black area represents
potential importance of this application. the subband for the low-pass analysis filter h0 (m; n), whereas the gray area
corresponds to the shape of a high-pass filter h1 (m; n) to achieve the aliasing
cancellation after the complete analysis/synthesis procedure.
II. BASIC PROPERTIES OF SEPARABLE AND
QUINCUNX SAMPLING IN TWO DIMENSIONS
This section presents basic concepts from the theory of the downsampling to this sublattice. The spatial and spatial
lattices [13] and their connection to two-dimensional (2-D) frequency expressions for the output of the downsampler can
multirate systems [14], [15] that will be used through the be written as
paper. Under the original lattice in two dimensions we assume
(2)
. The term multirate refers to systems “living” on different
sublattices of . The sublattice is determined by the sampling and
matrix , as the set of all vectors generated by , .
A coset of a sublattice is the set of points obtained by
shifting the entire sublattice by an integer shift vector . For
a given sublattice, there are exactly distinct
cosets , and their union is the input
(3)
lattice. For a given sampling matrix, the sampling density is
reduced by the factor . Due to downsampling, the
repeated spectra in the frequency domain appear on a dual where , is the 2-D real vector, and
lattice, which is characterized by a matrix . are 2-D integer vectors, and . From (3) we
The most often used sampling structure in image processing see that the output at each frequency is formed by summing
is separable, represented by matrices and in (1). input spectra at a set of aliasing offsets . Unless
However, although more difficult to implement, nonseparable all but one of aliasing components are zero, it is impossible
systems can offer many advantages and greater flexibility. The to recover the input signal from the output of the decimator.
simplest nonseparable sampling is quincunx, represented by Hence, if the sampled signal has the spectrum bandlimited to
matrices and in (1). the Voronoi cell of the corresponding lattice, no overlapping
of spectra will occur and the signal can be reconstructed from
its samples.

(1) III. WAVELET TRANSFORM IN ONE DIMENSION

The wavelet transform [16]–[18] performs the decomposi-
Fig. 2 illustrates separable and quincunx sublattices of in tion of a signal into the family of functions
the spatial and frequency domains. In the frequency domain,
a set of points being closer to the origin than to any other
lattice point is called Voronoi cell, . The meaning of the
Voronoi cell is extremely important, since it determines the generated from a prototype function (mother wavelet) by
shape of a possible low-pass filter to avoid aliasing caused by dilation and translation operations. The wavelet transform of
MOJSILOVIC et al.: CHARACTERIZATION OF VISUALLY SIMILAR DIFFUSE DISEASES 543

a signal can be computed via the following analysis and

synthesis formulas:

(4)

The mother wavelet can be constructed from the scaling

function as

(5)
Fig. 3. The division of spectrum after two iterations of the traditional dyadic
where . In the wavelet literature [16], wavelet decomposition.
[17], many different sets of coefficients can be found,
corresponding to wavelet bases with different properties. In
the case of the discrete wavelet transform (DWT), coefficients
play an important role, since they can be used for the
DWT computation, instead of the explicit forms for and
. It is shown [18] that, starting from the original signal
, discrete signals [the approximation
of at resolution ] and (information content lost
between higher resolution and lower resolution ) can Fig. 4. Filter bank performing the quincunx wavelet transform.
be computed as
are
(7a)
(7b)
(6)
Since this transform is performed with the two-
channel filter bank shown in Fig. 4. The Fourier expression
where and . This decomposition for the output of channel is
can be understood as passing of signal through a pair
of low-pass and high-pass filters and , followed by
the subsampling with a factor two.

IV. WAVELET TRANSFORM IN TWO DIMENSIONS: (8)

CONNECTION TO THE TEXTURE ANALYSIS
There are various extensions of one-dimensional (1-D)
wavelet transform to two dimensions. The simplest way to gen-
erate a 2-D wavelet transform is to apply two 1-D transforms
separately. Thus, image decomposition can be computed with
separable filtering along the abscissa and ordinate, by using
the same pyramidal algorithm as in the 1-D case [18]. This
corresponds to the case of separable sampling described by the
sampling matrix in (1). As shown in Fig. 3, this separable
transform (ST) decomposes images with a multiresolution
scale factor of two, providing at each resolution level one
low-resolution subimage and three spatially oriented wavelet
coefficient subimages. Another solution for the application
of the wavelet transform to higher dimensions is to use
nonseparable sampling and nonseparable filters. The simplest
transform of that type, known as quincunx transform (QT),
uses nonseparable and nonoriented filters, followed by the
nonseparable sampling represented by the matrix in (1).
Hence, the scaling function and corresponding wavelet family
where
and
(9)
are coset and modulation vectors for the case of quincunx
sampling. For more general applications, such as texture
synthesis, to assure the cancellation of the aliasing terms at the
output of the analysis/synthesis filter bank [14], the high-pass
filter should be designed as
(10)
This decomposition results in one low-resolution subimage
and one nonoriented wavelet subimage. Fig. 5 illustrates the
idealized partition of the frequency domain after four iter-
ations of quincunx decomposition. At each level, the input
544
Fig. 5. The division of spectrum after four iterations of the quincunx
transform.
image is decomposed with the multiresolution scale factor . and to map coefficients of the selected 1-D filter into a 2-D
This is very nice property for description of small textured
images, since the analysis is twice as fine as the separable
multiresolution decomposition. The spectral decompositions
shown in Figs. 3 and 5 suggest several advantages of the
quincunx transform for tissue characterization from B-scan
images. First, the separable sampling provides only rectangular
divisions of spectrum, with increased sensitivity to horizontal
and vertical edges. This could be important for the analysis
of directional textures, but it yields a rotationally sensitive
description, which is not desirable in this application. Due to
the shape of the low-pass and high-pass filters, it should be
expected that the quincunx decomposition has lower orienta-
tion sensitivity than separable decomposition. Still, it is not
completely rotationally insensitive—following the rotation of
the QT Voronoi cell around the origin, rotational sensitivity
increases up to 45 (where it reaches maximum), and then
decreases again, reaching the complete invariance for 90 .
Second, the energy of natural textures is mainly concentrated
in the mid-frequencies, with the insignificant energy along
diagonals. Therefore, the quincunx low-pass filter will preserve
more of the original signal energy, and its implementation in
the iterated filter bank could provide more reliable description
of texture. Finally, the diamond shape of the low-pass filter
in the quincunx case, plays the crucial role for the extraction
of texture features in the presence of noise, since it cuts off
diagonal high frequencies, where the most significant portion
of noise is contained. Thus, when working with noisy samples
(as in our case) the spectral decomposition performed on the
quincunx lattice represents a better solution than traditional
approach based on the separable sampling.
V. DESIGN OF 2-D DIAMOND-SHAPED FILTERS
When constructing a filter bank performing the DWT for
the texture characterization, a number of design requirements
have to be fulfilled. First, since images are mostly smooth, the
analysis should be performed with a smooth mother wavelet.
On the other hand, to achieve fast computation, the filters have
to be short, affecting the smoothness of the associated wavelet.
In more general applications, such as texture synthesis, it
would be nice to construct a perfect reconstruction filter bank,
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 17, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998
leading to the selection of orthogonal bases. Furthermore, the
filters should be symmetric, so they can be easily cascaded
without any additional phase compensation. For a two-channel,
real, finite impulse response case, linear phase and orthogo-
nality are mutually exclusive, but by using 2-D biorthogonal
filters it is possible to relax the orthogonality requirement,
yet preserving other important characteristics [16]. Finally, in
order to achieve the computation of the continuous wavelet
transform by iterating the low-pass branch of the filter bank,
the low-pass filter with the sufficient number of zeros at the
points of replicated spectra has to be used [17]. Unfortunately,
due to the difficult design of nonseparable filters there are
only few solutions satisfying all these properties. Therefore,
we have decided to apply the McClellan transform [19]
(11)
filter defined on the quincunx lattice. The transform obtained
ensures that all properties of 1-D filters are also satisfied in the
2-D case. Derivation of the transform is given in the Appendix.
VI. TISSUE CLASSIFICATION
A. Data Acquisition
The ultrasound images used in this research were obtained
on Toshiba SSA-100 equipment, with 3.5-MHz transducer
frequency. A Series 151 Image processor, from Imaging
Technology Inc., on IBM-PC, was used to capture images with
512 512 pixels and 256 gray-level resolution. Three sets of
images have been taken: normal (37 images from ten subjects),
steatosis (65 images from ten patients), and cirrhosis (20
images from ten patients). Since this study addresses the issue
of diagnosing early cirrhosis and steatosis, we have constrained
the selection of images to those from patients in early stage
of the disease. From each image, two blocks of 64 64 pixels
(approximately 2 cm 2 cm in actual dimensions) have been
selected. Blocks were chosen to include only liver tissue,
without blood vessels, acoustic shadowing, or any type of
distortion. In that way, the whole data set contained 244 tissue
samples for training and classification. The training and test
sets (each with 122 samples) were composed out of all blocks
from independent images.
In patients with steatosis and cirrhosis, the final diagno-
sis was confirmed by liver biopsy and histology, since this
presents the gold standard for diagnosing diffuse diseases. The
needle diameter was 1.6 mm, and the obtained tissue cylinders
were at least 2 cm.
The estimation of a texture quality was performed with the
four-level quincunx decomposition, yielding feature vectors
with maximal length of five. The size of the smallest subimage
in the quincunx pyramid is 16 16 pixels and further decom-
position would yield unreliable estimates of texture quality.
Fig. 6 shows the first three levels of the quincunx pyramid,
for one representative sample from each tissue class. The
decomposition was performed by using the three biorthogonal
families that provide short filters with the best tradeoff between
the filter lengths and the regularity of corresponding wavelet.
MOJSILOVIC et al.: CHARACTERIZATION OF VISUALLY SIMILAR DIFFUSE DISEASES 545

C. Classification
Assuming that feature vectors for normal, cirrhosis, and
steatosis tissue have approximately normal distribution (with
mean vector and covariance matrix ), the minimum error
(a)
discriminant function between the feature vector and class
is the Bayes distance

(13)
(b)
For each texture class, the mean and the covariance were
estimated using 122 texture samples with the leave-one-out
method [24]. The remaining samples were then classified.

(c)
Fig. 6. Quincunx decomposition of: (a) cirrhosis tissue, (b) normal tissue,
VII. RESULTS
and (c) steatosis tissue. The classification results obtained using all features of
quincunx decomposition are presented in Table III. The overall
A brief description and 1-D filter coefficients for each family classification accuracy is 90%. Specificity of the method was
are given in Table I. Table II presents coefficients of the 92%. Sensitivity in the detection of cirrhosis and steatosis
corresponding diamond-shaped filter. To illustrate the 1-D to were: 92 and 97%, respectively. These results correspond to
2-D mapping, the frequency responses of the second family decomposition with the second pair of filters (see Table II,
and its diamond-shaped counterparts are shown in Fig. 7. set 2). Similar results were obtained with the other two
sets, indicating that the texture classification scheme in this
application is almost insensitive to the selection of the wavelet
B. Texture Feature Extraction base.
Since the filter bank performing the QT represents one spe- As already mentioned in the data-acquisition section, the
cial case of the local linear transform approach for the texture training and classification sets were formed from independent
characterization, iterations of the quincunx decomposition images. Therefore, it is to be expected that in the classification
can be seen as a -channel filter bank, whose outputs phase both blocks from one image should be diagnosed
serve for the estimation of texture quality identically. This is true for normal and steatosis classes, but
in the corresponding frequency subband. The texture is then in the cirrhosis case, one block from an image was diagnosed
characterized by the set of first-order probability density differently from the other. More detailed examination showed
functions estimated at the output of each channel. More that this one, as well as many other misclassified samples was
compact representation can be achieved using the channel affected by noise. Some of them had inhomogeneous structure
variances var . The statistical justification for this approach due to small blood vessels present in that part of liver. Hence,
can be found in [20]. Another, psychophysical justification was it is obvious that the location of the region of interest (ROI)
offered by Pratt et al. [21], who showed that natural textures within an image has dominant effect on the classification. This
are visually indistinguishable if they possess the same first issue is addressed in more detail in Section VIII.
and second-order statistics. Also, the reliability of channel
variances has been proved in numerous wavelet-based texture A. Comparison Between Separable and
characterization algorithms [11], [12], [22], [23]. Since the Nonseparable Transform
high-pass conditions and imply
To compare the performance of the nonseparable quincunx
that , for , channel variances are
decomposition with the performance of the separable wavelet
represented through energies calculated at
transform, we have also performed two-level ST with the
the output of each channel with
same filter family (Table I, set 2), on the same data set. This
decomposition results in maximum of seven features and the
(12) same size of the smallest subimage. Using the same method
for training and classification and using the complete feature
set resulted in an 88% of overall classification accuracy. By
decreasing the number of features from five to three (for
where represents the image field, # denotes the number QT), and from seven to three (for ST), the classification
of pixels in , and stands for wavelet rate remained constant in the quincunx case, whereas in the
coefficient subimages obtained at the th decomposition level. ST case the overall classification rate decreased to 82%. By
Finally, due to the low-pass condition , to obtain inspection of misclassified samples, we have found that almost
the variance in the last low-pass channel, the mean of all samples that were misclassified with the QT, were also
the image should be removed. misclassified using the ST.
546 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 17, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998

TABLE I
FILTER COEFFICIENTS FOR THE 1-D BIORTHOGONAL WAVELET BASIS USED FOR THE DESIGN OF 2-D
DIAMOND-SHAPED FILTERS. THE FIRST FAMILY BELONGS TO THE SO-CALLED “SPLINE FILTERS” OR
“BINOMIAL FILTERS” IN [15], BECAUSE THE UNDERLYING SCALING FUNCTION IS A B-SPLINE. THE SECOND
FAMILY IS ALSO A “SPLINE VARIANT” BUT WITH LESS DISSIMILAR LENGTHS (AS OPPOSED TO BINOMIAL
FILTERS). THE EXAMPLE WE HAVE USED HAS THE SHORTEST FILTERS WITHIN
THIS FAMILY. THE THIRD SET OF COEFFICIENTS BELONGS TO FILTERS CLOSE TO
ORTHONORMAL FILTERS WHERE SCALING FUNCTION AND WAVELETS ARE VERY SIMILAR

TABLE II
FILTER COEFFICIENTS FOR THE 2-D BIORTHOGONAL DIAMOND-SHAPED FILTERS

TABLE III
CLASSIFICATION RESULTS OBTAINED WITH THE QUINCUNX DECOMPOSITION

normal cirrhosis steatosis overall

misclassification/total 4/37 1/20 6/65 11/22

classification rate 89% 95% 91% 90%

(a)
(b)
Fig. 7. Magnitudes of the frequency response for: (a) 1-D low-pass and
high-pass prototype filters and (b) their 2-D counterparts. The filters corre-
spond to biorthogonal spline families with low-pass and high-pass filters of
similar length. The coefficients of 1-D prototypes correspond to the second
family in Table I.
B. Sensitivity to Rotation
We were also interested in testing the ability of nonseparable
decomposition to classify textures with respect to rotation.
In the second experiment, without changing already esti-
mated class prototypes, we have classified texture samples
rotated at 5 , 23 , 45 , and 90 . Samples for the experiment
were obtained in the following manner. First, the whole
image was rotated for the determined degree, and then two
tissue samples were taken from the same positions as in
the previous experiment. The rotation was performed using
a bicubic interpolation. The QT yielded overall accuracy
of 88%, 88%, 80%, and 90% (for 5 , 23 , 45 , and 90 ,
respectively), whereas ST gave 82%, 81%, 56%, and 81%.
These results follow from the analysis in Section IV. It is
MOJSILOVIC et al.: CHARACTERIZATION OF VISUALLY SIMILAR DIFFUSE DISEASES
obvious that the quincunx decomposition performs better
than the separable decomposition, but the complete rotation
invariance is not achieved since the classification accuracy is
not maintained at different angles. One way to achieve the
complete invariance is to use any circularly shaped spectral
decomposition, such as hexagonal decomposition, steereable
pyramid, or Gabor transform [25], [26]. Each of these trans-
forms has very fine orientation selectivity and produces a
number of features that correspond to a certain orientation.
Hence, for the selected transform, by averaging all features
from the same resolution level, we will produce one rota-
tionally insensitive feature. Unfortunately, by achieving the
rotational insensitivity, we are loosing valuable features in
terms of general description, and the overall accuracy of
the method can decrease. Another solution would be the
construction of tissue prototypes for different orientations.
For example, instead of one cirrhosis class we would have
classes, for different degrees of orientation. In that case,
instead of classification into three groups, we would perform
classification into groups. Although promising, for reliable
estimation of class prototypes, this approach requires a huge
amount of data and even more sophisticated feature-extraction
techniques.
C. Comparison with Other Texture Description Methods
To compare the performance of different feature-extraction
techniques in diagnosing early diffuse diseases, we have
compared the wavelet-based approach with: 1) gray-level
concurrence (GLC) matrices, as defined in [7], and [10]; 2)
fractal texture measures [7]; and 3) Fourier measures [7].
In this experiment, using the same data set, the following
measures have been calculated.
1) Contrast, angular second moment, and correlation for the
GLC method [7], [10]. The GLC matrices were formed
for all combination of displacement and
and angles and . visual differences between the early diffuse diseases are hardly
2) Ring and wedge energies, derived from
the Fourier power spectrum [6], for all combinations
and
. phenomenon, mostly affecting a single image point. Hence, by
3) Multithreshold fractal features proposed for liver tissue
classification as defined in [7].
The highest overall classification accuracy was: 87% for the
GLC method, 82% for Fourier measures, and 69% for fractal
measures, indicating the superiority of the wavelet approach.
VIII. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The goal of this research was the detection of an optimal
feature-extraction technique for description of different ultra-
sound textures. Therefore, we have investigated the utility
of wavelet decompositions as feature-extraction methods in
discrimination among diffuse liver diseases. We have applied
a nonseparable quincunx transform with a multiresolution
scale factor , traditional approach based on the separable
wavelet transform, and compared them with the previously
used approaches. The classification results obtained with both
547
wavelet transforms are very promising. Based on the ex-
perimental results, we conclude that the quincunx transform
is more appropriate for characterization of noisy data, and
for practical applications requiring description with lower
rotational sensitivity. The results obtained in the study, clearly,
illustrate the utility of sophisticated image processing algo-
rithms in the ultrasound diagnostics of liver. However, for
the general application of the method, many issues still have
to be developed. It is obvious from our results, as well
as from the previous work [10], [27], that the location of
the ROI within an image has the dominant effect on the
classification. This is due to the fact that ultrasound pattern
exhibits different behavior along the path of the acoustic pulse,
resulting in the prominently different distribution of horizontal
edges along axis of an image. Also, the lateral speckle pattern
is strongly depth dependent [27]. Finally, echocardiogram is
formed according to the sector, while images are sampled
along the rectangular grid. During the selection of tissue
samples we have done our best to choose the data set as
homogenous as possible. This was done by taking the samples
from an isolated region in the center of an image without
great changes in the cursor position, but our selection was
severely constrained by the presence of major blood vessels
and acoustic shadowing. It should be also mentioned that the
images were recorded by different clinicians who were free
to adjust ultrasound settings (within the acceptable range) in
order to visually optimize images. We feel that this degree
of freedom is required, so the whole method could follow
natural processing of each individual physician, but it is to be
expected that a more rigorous selection of tissue samples could
increase classification accuracy. At this point, the advantages
of the wavelet approach over other methods become obvious.
First, since the mean values of all DWT channels are zero, the
changes in the gain setting could not affect the results. Also,
it has been shown that the wavelet transform is powerful ana-
lytical tool for assessment of the singularities [16], [17]. Since
distinguishable, due to minor changes in tissue structure, the
wavelet transform is appropriate for “zooming” into those dif-
ferences. Furthermore, the ultrasound noise is a high-frequency
eliminating from the classification high-frequency channels at
the highest resolution level, the impact of ultrasound noise
can be significantly reduced. Finally, the proposed feature
method is independent of the classification technique. The
wavelet-based texture measures can be used with minimum-
distance-type classifiers, Bayesian-type classifiers, or as inputs
to a neural network. Since previous investigations showed that
the classification technique has significant influence to the final
diagnosis [8], [10], further research should be performed in
that direction.
APPENDIX
DERIVATION OF THE MCCLELLAN TRANSFORM
FOR DESIGN OF DIAMOND-SHAPED FILTERS
The mapping of a 1-D zero-phase symmetric filter
into a 2-D filter starts with the Fourier
548 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON MEDICAL IMAGING, VOL. 17, NO. 4, AUGUST 1998

transform of written as a function of By substituting an aliasing frequency into (A8) we

obtain the additional constraint for the filter design as
(A9)
Since the shape of the low-pass filter produced with the
(A1) transform has to follow the shape of the Voronoi cell for the
quincunx lattice, we impose the band-edge-contour constraint
to minimize the following error function:

(A2)

(A10)
where , , and , and
where corresponds to the Voronoi cell of the quincunx
is the length of the filter. The next step is to write
lattice. In this particular case we minimize under
as a polynomial of . This can be achieved
the constraints (A7) and (A9). Consequently, the minimization
by using the Chebyshev polynomials, since can be
of the error function is the linear problem. Hence, we obtain
written as , where is the th-order Chebyshev
the simplest, first-order transform for a design of diamond-
polynomial. Hence
shape filters
(A11)
(A3)
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