Kevin J. Parker

Dean, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences
William F. May Professor of Engineering
Professor of Biomedical Engineering
Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Professor of Radiology
Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1981
Key Words:
medical imaging, 3-D and 4-D imaging, Doppler imaging techniques, digital halftoning

Email: <parker@seas.rochester.edu>

Projects are under way in a number of areas related to medical imaging, halftoning, and novel scanning techniques using Doppler shift effects. All of these are built on the fundamentals of wave propagation combined with signal and image processing techniques. Many projects are undertaken in joint facilities of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and the Department of Imaging Sciences at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Sonoelasticity Imaging: This is a novel hybrid imaging technique that uses Doppler ultrasound to map out, or image, the local vibrations within tissues or structures that are excited by externally applied oscillations at low frequencies (10-1000 Hz typically.) The concept is that stiff tumors surrounded by soft tissues will present abnormal vibration amplitudes and can therefore be detected. Initial results have been encouraging and applications to the analysis of structures may also be possible.

Three-Dimensional (3-D) Medical Imaging: The major imaging modalities (CT, MRI, and Ultrasound) are now capable of 3-D data acquisition. The visualization, segmentation and quantification of 3-D, low-contrast tissue requires many advanced techniques. Our group has developed multidimensional processing and display techniques for 3-D and 4-D medical images.

Digital Halftoning of Medical Images: A particular black and white pixel pattern, called "blue noise" is thought to be ideal for binary representation of gray scale images. However, until recently, no fast and artifact-free means existed for generating the ideal pattern in reasonable amounts of time. We have developed an approach that simultaneously constrains the first and second order statistics of a halftone screen, which can provide substantial speed and quality advantages compared to previous methods. The specially constructed halftone screen, called a "Blue Noise Mask," produces an isotropic, unstructured, visually pleasing pattern of black and white pixels in halftone images. Applications to color halftoning and fax transmission of halftone images are under development.

A Few Representative Publications:

  1. "Sonoelastographic imaging of interference patterns for estimation of shear velocity distribution in biomaterials,"
    Zhe Wu, Kenneth Hoyt, Deborah J Rubens, Kevin J Parker, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Volume 120, Issue 1, July 2006, pp. 535-545.
  2. "Three-dimensional sonoelastography for in vitro detection of prostate cancer," Lawrence S. Taylor, Deborah J. Rubens, Brian C. Porter, Zhe Wu, Raymond B. Baggs, P. Anthony di Sant’Agnese, Gyongyi Nadasdy, David Pasternack, Edward M. Messing, Priya Nigwekar, Kevin J. Parker, Radiology, Volume 237, No. 3, December 2005, p. 981 - 985.
  3. "A unified view of imaging the elastic properties of tissue," Kevin J. Parker, Lawrence S. Taylor, Sheryl Gracewski, Deborah J. Rubens, Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 117(5), May 2005. Virtual Journal of Biological Physics Research, 9 (9), May 1, 2005.
  4. "Sonoelastographic imaging of interference patterns for estimation of the shear velocity of homogeneous biomaterials," Zhe Wu, Lawrence S. Taylor, Deborah J. Rubens, and Kevin J. Parker. Physics in Medicine and Biology, 49, pp. 911-922, 2004.
  5. "Three-dimensional registration of prostate images from histology and ultrasound," Lawrence S. Taylor, Bryan. C. Porter, Gyongi Nadasdy, P. Anthony DiSantAgnese, David Pasternack, Zhe Wu, Raymond B. Baggs, Deborah J. Rubens, and Kevin J. Parker. Ultrasound in Medicine and Biology, 30 (2), pp. 161-168, 2004.
  6. "Optimal output selection for multilevel halftoning based on visual experiments using spatially modulated gratings," Muge Wang, K. J. Parker, K. Spaulding, Q. Yu, and R. Miller. Journal of Imaging Science and Technology, 47 (4), pp. 309-326, 2003.
  7. "Doppler ultrasound imaging of magnetically vibrated brachytherapy seeds," Stephen A. McAleavey, Deborah J. Rubens, and Kevin J. Parker. IEEE Transactions for Biomedical Engineering, 50 (2), pp. 252-254, 2003.

PubMed Publication List

PubMed is maintained by the National Library of Medicine and provides complete abstracts of all 'parker kj' publications, as well as links to the full text of many articles (at journal home pages).

A Few Representative Presentations:

  1. "Medical imaging using nonlinear ultrasound and the role of Edwin Carstensen," Kevin J. Parker, 151 st Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, June 8, 2006.
  2. "From Static to Dynamic Elastography: The Unified Range of Elastic Response," KJ Parker, LS Taylor, SM Gracewski, DJ Rubens. Fourth International Conference on the Ultrasonic Measurement and Imaging of Tissue Elasticity, Oct 2005.
  3. "Shear wave interferometry, an application of sonoelastography," Zhe Wu and Kevin J. Parker. 149th Meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, May 2005.


Link to Medical Imaging Course (ECE452)

Last updated: January 9, 2007