关键词: confocal microscopy, weak fluorescence, image restoration, spatially adaptive high-order total variation (SA-HOTV)

Abstract: Confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM) has emerged as one of the most advanced fluorescence cell imaging techniques in the field of biomedicine. However, fluorescence cell imaging is limited by spatial blur and additive white noise induced by the excitation light. In this paper, a spatially adaptive high-order total variation (SA-HOTV) model for weak fluorescence image restoration is proposed to conduct image restoration. The method consists of two steps: optimizing the deconvolution model of the fluorescence image by the generalized Lagrange equation and alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM); using spatially adaptive parameters to balance the image fidelity and the staircase effect. Finally, an comparison of SA-HOTV model and Richardson-Lucy model with total variation (RL-TV model) indicates that the proposed method can preserve the image details ultimately, reduce the staircase effect substantially and further upgrade the quality of the restored weak fluorescence image.

Key words: confocal microscopy, weak fluorescence, image restoration, spatially adaptive high-order total variation (SA-HOTV)