Patent ID: 7245786

Claim:
A method for filtering transient noise comprising the steps of: receiving time-varying signal data indicative of an image of an object; determining a Stockwell spectrum of frequency component magnitude vs. time by Stockwell transforming the time-varying signal data; determining frequency locations in time where the frequency component magnitude exceeds a predetermined threshold; replacing the frequency component magnitude at the determined locations with a predetermined frequency component magnitude; collapsing the Stockwell spectrum into a lower-dimensional function producing a Fourier spectrum of the filtered time-varying signal data; inverse Fourier transforming the Fourier spectrum producing filtered time-varying signal data; determining artifact regions, wherein the artifact regions are determined as regions extending from the locations where the frequency component magnitude exceeds the predetermined threshold to locations where the frequency component magnitude approximately equals the median magnitude; and replacing the magnitudes of the frequency components within the artifact regions with the median magnitude of the respective frequency component.