Washington, December 23: US researchers have come up with a new way to get better quality X-ray images without having to use more radiation, which increases risk for patients.

The researchers took 15 images made with low doses of X-ray radiation, and used a new software to create a high resolution one from them, a process known as "super-resolution".

Efforts of researchers from Duke University Medical Center in Durham and the University of California Santa Cruz, as well as Silicon Valley-based scientists, have given rise to the new approach.

The researchers say that to produce the same quality image would normally mean using a third more radiation than the combined dose of all 15 low-resolution exposures.

So far, they have conducted trials on a dummy breast. Their study showed dramatic improvements in resolution of fine features implanted within the substrate, and produced a clearer picture than could usually be made with the same amount of radiation.

Super resolution involves taking several low-resolution images by shifting a camera slightly each time. The images, which are subtly different, are then automatically aligned by comparing them all, two at a time generally.

The researchers say that it is possible to mathematically reverse the blurring effect and make a higher-resolution image by analysing the way the same features are blurred differently in each low-quality image.

"In practice, most algorithms for alignment are not accurate enough, or are too computationally intensive. That's why they have not yet widely been used in digital cameras, " says Sina Farsiu, a member of the team at Duke.

The researchers have already devised more efficient algorithms that perform the two main steps involved in super-resolution quickly. Rather than comparing images two at a time, they compare all the low-resolution frames at once to create the final image.

According to them, this gives a more accurate result, and can process even large X-ray images without requiring excessive computing power.

"I think this approach has the potential to be very fast. Ultimately, if we are use super-resolution in consumer devices, we need to speed it up dramatically, " says Farsiu.

The research work was presented at the Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems, and Computers, in Pacific Grove, California. (ANI)