Digital processing in cardiac imaging.

In recent years, imaging modalities have realized the potential for digitizing images of the heart. These modalities include nuclear cardiology, echocardiography, digital subtraction angiography, computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and magnetic resonance imaging. Once the cardiac images have been digitized by the computer and formatted in a pixel array of data, the computer can perform mathematical operations on the input (original) images for the purpose of providing improved output (processed) images. The computer can also analyze the original (or processed) images for the purpose of extracting global, regional, or temporal measurements of cardiac perfusion and function. These processes include the restoration, enhancement, analysis, manipulation, and coding of images. These basic processes are implemented by a combination of image processing operations. These operations include pixel point processing, pixel group processing, frame processing, geometric processing, and information extraction. This article describes how these operations are used to perform processes, and how these processes are applied to cardiac imaging, currently and in the future.