Motion-compensated frame rate up-conversion in carotid ultrasound images using optical flow and manifold learning

Objective: Carotid ultrasonography is a reliable and non-invasive method to evaluate atherosclerosis disease and its complications. B-mode cineloops are widely used to assess the severity of atherosclerosis and its progression; ho-
wever, tracking rapid wall motions of the carotid artery is still a challenging issue due the low frame rate. The aim of this paper was to present a new hybrid frame rate up-conversion (FRUC) method that accounts for motion based on manifold learning and optical flow.
Methods: In the last decade, manifold learning technique has been used to pseudo-increase the frame rate of carotid ultrasound images, but due to the dependence of this method to the number of recorded cardiac cycles and frames, a new hybrid method based on manifold learning and optical flow was proposed in this paper.
Results: Locally linear embedding (LLE) algorithm was first applied to find the relation between the frames of consecutive cardiac cycles in a low dimensional manifold. Then by applying the optical flow motion estimation algorithm, a motion compensated frame was reconstructed.
Conclusion: Consequently, a cycle with more frames was created to provide a more accurate consideration of carotid wall motion compared to the typical B-mode ultrasound ima-ges. The results revealed that our new hybrid method outperforms the pseudo-increasing frame rate scheme based on manifold learning.

Keywords: Algorithm, carotid B-mode images; frame rate; locally linear embedding; manifold learning; motion-compensated; optical flow; up-conversion.