Digital restoration of scintigraphic images by a two-step procedure.

A two-step procedure for restoring scintigraphic images is described. The first step uses a local-statistics algorithm for improvement in signal-to-noise ratio by smoothing the Poisson noise. The second step aims at improvement in spatial resolution by removing the linear blur using the iterative restoration algorithm. We present some results of computer simulations and restoration of scintigraphic images that demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed procedure.