Patent ID: 7327895

Claim:
A method for filtering a digital image, acquired with a medical device, comprising the steps of: calculating an integral signal-to-noise ratio of a digital image; calculating a limit value for said integral signal-to-noise ratio of a filtered image from said integral signal-to-noise ratio of said digital image; iteratively filtering said digital image with a spatial-frequency operator while varying a dosage of the filtering, thereby producing a plurality of iteratively filtered images; as each of said iteratively filtered images is produced, calculating the integral signal-to-noise ratio of that iteratively filtered image; comparing the integral signal-to-noise ratio of each of the iteratively filtered images to said limit value; aborting said iterative filtering of said digital image with the spatial-frequency operator when the integral signal-to-noise ratio of one of said iteratively filtered images reaches said limit value; and employing the dosage most recently employed when said iterative filtering was aborted as an optimum dosage for filtering said digital image with said spatial-frequency operator to produce said filtered image.