Filtering of image sequences

1. A method for image processing, the method comprising:

providing a sequence of images having contrast modulations along said sequence;

extracting for each pixel of the sequence of images a first reference frequency related to said contrast modulations along said sequence, the first reference frequency being a harmonic frequency of said contrast modulations; and

filtering each pixel of said sequence of images depending on said first reference frequency by extracting a harmonic frequency component from the sequence of pixels at the first reference frequency, thereby providing a modified sequence;

extracting for each pixel of the sequence of images a second reference frequency being a higher harmonic frequency of the contrast modulations along the sequence;

filtering each pixel of the modified sequence of images by extracting a higher harmonic frequency component from the modified sequence of pixels at the second reference frequency, thereby providing an output sequence of images, and providing at least one of an in-phase component of the of the output images and an out-of-phase component of the output images; and

displaying the output sequence of images as a color coded or grey coded image; and

wherein the first and second reference frequencies deviate from the respective harmonic frequencies by up to 30%; and

wherein the extracting and filtering steps above are performed via a processor.

2. The method according to claim 1 , wherein

said sequence of images show a blood vessel of a vessel system;

the method further comprising:

generating said contrast modulations along said sequence of images by injecting a contrast agent at a steady rate into said vessel system at an injection region; wherein

said contrast modulations being generated by modulations of a blood velocity at said injection region due to a heart beat.

3. The method according to claim 1 , wherein providing said first reference frequency comprises extracting said reference frequency from an electrocardiogram signal.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein providing said first reference frequency comprises extracting said reference frequency from a time dependence of contrast along said sequence of images.

5. The method according to claim 1 , wherein extracting a harmonic frequency component from one of said images at said reference frequency comprises:

applying a windowed harmonic filtering to each pixel of said one of said images;

wherein said windowed filtering is performed by taking into account images within a window of images around said one of said images; and

a number of images within said window of images corresponds to a time period corresponding to said reference frequency.

6. The method according to claim 1 further comprising detecting contrast regions having a predetermined contrast of interest in said images and low pass filtering each of the images in said contrast regions.

7. The method according to claim 1 , further comprising

extracting from said images a low frequency component along said sequence of images;

removing said low frequency component from said images before performing said filtering of said sequence of images.

8. An apparatus for processing an image sequence, the apparatus comprising:

a reference frequency processor for receiving a sequence of images having contrast modulations along said sequence and extracting for each pixel of the sequence of images a reference frequency related to said contrast modulations along said sequence, the reference frequency being a harmonic frequency of said contrast modulations, wherein the reference frequency deviates from the respective harmonic frequency by up to 30%;

a first filter for filtering each pixel of said sequence of images depending on said reference frequency by extracting a harmonic frequency component from the sequence of pixels at the reference frequency, thereby providing a modified sequence of images;

a second filter for filtering each pixel of the modified sequence of images by extracting a higher harmonic frequency component from the modified sequence of pixels at a different reference frequency, thereby providing an output sequence of images, and providing at least one of an in-phase component of the output images and an out-of-phase component of the output images; and

a display for displaying the output sequence of images as a color coded or grey coded image sequence.

9. A computer program product including non-transitory computer data stored on a tangible computer readable medium, the computer program product comprising program code instructions to perform the steps of:

providing a sequence of images having contrast modulations along said sequence;

extracting for each pixel of the sequence of images a first reference frequency related to said contrast modulations along said sequence, the first reference frequency being a harmonic frequency of said contrast modulations;

filtering each pixel of said sequence of images depending on said first reference frequency by extracting a harmonic frequency component from the sequence of pixels at the first reference frequency, thereby providing a modified sequence of images;

extracting for each pixel of the sequence of images a second reference frequency being a higher harmonic frequency of the contrast modulations along the sequence;

filtering each pixel of the modified sequence of images by extracting a higher harmonic frequency component from the modified sequence of pixels at the second reference frequency, thereby providing an output sequence of images, and providing at least one of an in-phase component of the output images and an out-of-phase component of the output images; and

displaying the output sequence of images as a color coded or grey coded image sequence;

wherein the first and second reference frequencies deviate from the respective harmonic frequencies by up to 30%.