Non local bilateral filter for ultrasound images denoising

Speckle noise is a prevalent issue in ultrasound imaging that degrades image quality. This work proposes an enhanced framework for speckle noise reduction by incorporating the Rayleigh probability distribution function into the bilateral and non-local means filters. Given that speckle noise follows a Rayleigh distribution, integrating this statistical model into the filter kernels provides a tailored noise suppression approach for ultrasound images. The proposed method introduces a Rayleigh distribution-based bilateral filter, which is then integrated into a non-local means filter framework. Evaluations on synthetic and real ultrasound images demonstrate the performance of the proposed method in reducing speckle noise while preserving crucial details.