ccderaser(1)                General Commands Manual               ccderaser(1)



NAME
       ccderaser - erase X-rays, defects and fiducial markers from images

SYNOPSIS
       ccderaser  [options]  input_file  [output_file]

DESCRIPTION
       This program replaces deviant pixels with interpolated values from sur-
       rounding pixels.  It is designed to correct defects in electron micro-
       scope images from CCD cameras.  It can use two algorithms to automati-
       cally remove peaks in intensity caused by X-rays.  It can also take an
       IMOD model file with specifications of regions to be replaced; in this
       mode it can be used to erase gold fiducial markers.  With a model, the
       program can replace a group of adjacent pixels with interpolated val-
       ues, or all of the pixels along a line.  It can do this on only a spe-
       cific image, or on all of the sections in the file. The program can
       operate in trial mode, without making an output file, and it can output
       a model file with points at the pixels to be replaced.

   Automatic X-Ray Removal
       The automatic removal of X-rays works by dividing the area of each
       image into patches for scanning.  The mean and standard deviation (SD)
       of the pixels in a patch are computed.  The patch is then scanned for
       pixels that deviate from the mean by more than a criterion number of
       SDs (the scan criterion, a relatively low number to keep from missing
       peaks).  When such a pixel is found, the program searches neighboring
       pixels to find a peak in intensity.  It then computes the mean and SD
       of pixels in an annulus around the peak and makes sure that the peak
       deviates from this local mean by more than a criterion number of SDs
       (the peak criterion).  Neighboring pixels inside the inner radius of
       the annulus are added to the list of pixels to be replaced if they
       deviate by a lower criterion (the grow criterion).  The patch of pixels
       is then replaced by fitting a polynomial to adjacent pixels and inter-
       polating from the polynomial.  If the peak does not deviate suffi-
       ciently from this local mean, but is stronger than the mean of the scan
       area by the scan criterion plus 1, then the mean and SD is again com-
       puted in a larger annulus.  If the peak deviates from this mean by a
       number of SDs bigger than another criterion for extra-large peaks, a
       patch of pixels is found, but it is replaced only if enough pixels dif-
       fer from adjacent ones by large enough amounts (see the -big option
       below).  The reason for these two stages is that the inner radius for
       the first stage must be set safely smaller than the radius of gold
       beads to avoid erasing part of the beads, whereas the second stage can
       work with larger areas because it has more stringent criteria that
       reject gold beads.

       After the peaks are found in a scanning patch, the program next finds
       the difference between each pixel and the mean of the eight adjacent
       pixels.  The mean and SD of this difference is computed, then pixels
       are sought that deviate from the mean by yet another criterion, the
       difference criterion.  When such a pixel is found, neighboring pixels
       are examined and added to the patch of pixels to replace if their dif-
       ference exceeds the grow criterion.  If the number of pixels in the
       patch does not exceed a specified maximum, replacement proceeds as
       above; otherwise the patch is ignored.

       Two methods are used because the first method is probably more reliable
       for dealing with strong peaks that extend over several pixels, while
       the second method is definitely better for finding small X-rays.

       After all the patches have been scanned for a section, the program then
       searches for single pixels with large interpixel differences at the
       edges of the image, over the width set by the -border option.  A dif-
       ference between a pixel and the mean of whatever adjacent pixels exist
       is computed and its deviation from the overall mean interpixel differ-
       ence is divided by the maximum SD of interpixel differences over all of
       the scans.  When this value exceeds the difference criterion and the
       interpixel difference is greater than that of its neighbors, the pixel
       is replaced with the mean.  This procedure is iterated up to 4 times to
       catch adjacent extreme pixels.

       Tuning the removal of X-rays would primarily involve adjusting two of
       the criteria.  The peak and difference criteria would be adjusted down
       or up to increase or decrease the number of deviant pixels that are
       found.  The grow criterion could also be adjusted down or up depending
       on whether too few or too many pixels are included in a patch that is
       replaced, but this step is not usually done in practice.  If there are
       strong, large artifacts that are not being removed, the big difference
       criterion for extra-large peaks should be lowered first, then if neces-
       sary, the maximum radius and criterion strength for extra-large peaks
       can be adjusted.

   Manual Removal of Defects and Markers
       For manual removal of defects, prepare an IMOD model file to specify
       the points to be replaced.  There can be four kinds of objects:

       1)  Pixel objects, in which there is a point inside of every pixel to
       be replaced, and each contour corresponds to a separate patch of
       points.

       2) Boundary objects, in which each contour encloses a separate patch of
       pixels to be replaced.

       3) Line objects, in which each contour defines a horizontal or vertical
       line of points to be replaced.

       4) Circle objects, used to replace pixels in a circle around each
       point.

       Pixel, boundary, and line objects can be applied either on the section
       where they are drawn, or on all sections.  For example, one might have
       two different pixel objects, one for patches to be replaced on a single
       section and one for patches to be replaced on all sections.  Note that
       if you are working with a montage, "all sections" means "all pieces".
       If you are modeling on images displayed as a montage with no overlap
       between the pieces, you only need to draw a patch on one of the pieces
       to have it erased on all the pieces at each view.

       TO set up a pixel object, make the object type be scattered points, and
       turn on drawing of circles, but leave the sphere radius at zero.  To
       specify a patch of points, start a new contour and place a point inside
       of EVERY pixel in the patch.  Each separate patch should be in a sepa-
       rate contour.  If the correction is to be made on only a single sec-
       tion, all of the points must lie on that section; but the points for a
       patch to be corrected on all sections can be on more than one section,
       because sometimes they are more discernable on particular sections.

       A boundary object should be the default, closed contour type.  Draw a
       contour around each patch of pixels to be erased.  A pixel will be
       included in the erasure if its center is inside or on the boundary
       line.  Contours can be arbitrarily large, and there is tapering of
       intensities inside contours that are bigger than 1000 pixels.

       A line object should be closed or open contour type.  To specify a line
       of points, make a contour with two points, at the start and end of the
       line to be replaced.  Lines must be horizontal or vertical.  Each pixel
       will be replaced by the average of the two pixels on either side of the
       line.  Put each line in a different contour.  Ajdacent lines will be
       detected and erased together.

       To set up a circle object, make the object type be scattered points,
       set the sphere radius to an appropriate value, and check the option to
       display spheres only on their center section.  If necessary, you can
       give some of the points sizes that are different from the default by
       opening a dialog with Edit-Point-Size.  A pixel will be replaced if its
       center lies inside or on the circle.  For small radii, the fact that
       the default sphere radius is constrained to an integer may be a prob-
       lem; if so, use the -better option to enter a floating point default
       radius for Ccderaser to use.  For using circle objects to remove gold
       markers, -merge should also be used so that adjacent markers are
       removed together, and -exclude will help keep dark pixels just outside
       the circle from making the filled in region too dark.

OPTIONS
       Ccderaser uses the PIP package for input (see the manual page for
       pip) and can take input interactively only for specifying manual
       replacement with a model file, to maintain compatibility with old com-
       mand files.  The following options can be specified either as command
       line arguments (with the -) or one per line in a command file or param-
       eter file (without the -).  Options can be abbreviated to unique let-
       ters; the currently valid abbreviations for short names are shown in
       parentheses.

       -input (-in) OR -InputFile     File name
              Input image file.  This may also be entered after all arguments
              on the command line.

       -output (-outp) OR -OutputFile      File name
              Output image file.  This may also be entered after an input file
              name on the command line.  If no output file is specified and
              the program is not run in trial mode, pixels will be replaced in
              the input file.  USE REPLACEMENT OPTION WITH CAUTION.

       -piece (-pi) OR -PieceListFile      File name
              File with piece coordinates for a montaged image file.  With
              this entry, the program will assume that an input model was
              drawn on a display of the montage with overlaps adjusted to be
              either 0,0 or the amount indicated by the -overlaps option.  The
              output model file with points found will also be formatted to
              fit on such a display.

       -overlaps (-ov) OR -OverlapsForModel     Two integers
              Overlaps in X and Y at which a montaged image is being viewed
              both when producing an input model and viewing the output model
              of pixels being replaced.  The same values should be used as are
              provided to the -o option of 3dmod.  The default is 0,0, which
              represents no overlap between images.

       -find (-f) OR -FindPeaks
              Find and erase peaks a criterion # of SDs above or below back-
              ground.  This option must be included for automatic removal of
              X-rays.

       -peak (-pe) OR -PeakCriterion       Floating point
              Criterion # of SDs above local mean for erasing peak based on
              intensity (the default is 10 SDs).

       -diff (-d) OR -DiffCriterion   Floating point
              Criterion # of SDs above mean pixel-to-pixel difference for
              erasing a peak based on differences (the default is 10 SDs)

       -grow (-gr) OR -GrowCriterion       Floating point
              Criterion # of SDs above mean for adding points to peak (the
              default is 4 SDs).

       -scan (-sc) OR -ScanCriterion       Floating point
              Criterion # of SDs of mean of scan area for picking peaks in
              initial scan (the default is 3 SDs).

       -radius (-r) OR -MaximumRadius      Floating point
              Maximum radius of peak area to erase (the default is 2.1 pix-
              els).

       -giant (-gi) OR -GiantCriterion     Floating point
              Criterion # of SDs above local mean for erasing extra-large peak
              based on intensity (the default is 12 SDs).  Enter 0 to disable
              this second stage of peak removal.

       -large (-la) OR -ExtraLargeRadius   Floating point
              Maximum radius of extra-large peak area to erase (the default is
              8 pixels).

       -big (-bi) OR -BigDiffCriterion     Floating point
              An extra-large peak will be erased only if the value for the
              maximum difference between adjacent pixels, averaged over the
              most extreme one-fourth of the pixels in the patch, exceeds this
              criterion, evaluated as the number of SDs above the mean abso-
              lute difference between adjacent pixels in the scan area.  The
              default is 19.  This high a value is needed to prevent gold era-
              sure on low-noise data sets with small gold particles, and a
              lower value may be needed to make extra-large peak removal use-
              ful.

       -maxdiff (-ma) OR -MaxPixelsInDiffPatch       Integer
              Maximum number of pixels in a patch that exceeds the difference
              criterion.  If the number of pixels that satisfy the criteria
              exceed this limit, none of the pixels in the patch will be
              replaced.  The default is 2.

       -outer (-oute) OR -OuterRadius      Floating point
              Outer radius of annulus around a peak in which to calculate
              local mean and SD (the default is 4.1 pixels).  This option and
              -width are mutually exclusive.

       -width (-w) OR -AnnulusWidth   Floating point
              Difference between outer and inner radius of the annulus around
              a peak in which to calculate local mean and SD (the default is
              2.0 pixels).  This option and -radius are mutually exclusive.

       -xyscan (-x) OR -XYScanSize    Integer
              Size of regions to compute mean and SD in for initial scans (the
              default is 100 pixels).

       -edge (-ed) OR -EdgeExclusionWidth       Integer
              Width of area to exclude on all edges of image in pixels
              (default 0).

       -iterations (-it) OR -SearchIterations   Integer
              Number of times to iterate search for peaks.  For a given sec-
              tion, the iterations will be terminated after an iteration with
              no changes.  Moreover, the program will keep track of which scan
              regions have changes on each iteration and stop redoing regions
              that have had no changes. The default is 3.

       -points (-po) OR -PointModel   File name
              Output model file with points replaced in peak search.  Each
              patch of points will be in a separate contour.  Patches are
              sorted into separate objects based on how much the peak exceeds
              a criterion.

       -model (-mo) OR -ModelFile     File name
              Input model file specifying points or lines to be erased.

       -lines (-li) OR -LineObjects   List of integer ranges
              List of objects that define lines to be replaced.  Ranges can be
              entered, and / to specify all objects.

       -boundary (-bou) OR -BoundaryObjects     List of integer ranges
              List of objects that contain boundary contours around pixels to
              be replaced.  Ranges can be entered, and / to specify all
              objects.  Boundary contours can be arbitrarily large.  When a
              contour encloses more than 1000 pixels, a different procedure is
              use to erase the points, and intensities are tapered down over 8
              pixels on the inside of the patch from the value of the nearest
              pixel just outside the patch to the mean of the surrounding pix-
              els.

       -allsec (-a) OR -AllSectionObjects       List of integer ranges
              List of objects with points to be replaced on all sections.
              Ranges can be entered, and / to specify all objects.

       -circle (-c) OR -CircleObjects      List of integer ranges
              List of objects that contain scattered points for replacing pix-
              els within a circle around each point.  The sphere radius, which
              can be an individual value for each point, is used to indicate
              the size of circle to replace.  Ranges can be entered, and / to
              specify all objects.

       -better (-be) OR -BetterRadius      Multiple floats
              For circle objects, this entry specifies a radius to use for
              points without an individual point size instead of the object's
              default sphere radius.  This entry is floating point and can be
              used to overcome the limitations of having an integer default
              sphere radius.  If there are multiple circle objects, enter one
              value to apply to all objects or a value for each object.

       -expand (-exp) OR -ExpandCircleIterations     Integer
              Number of iterations of a procedure that expands the area erased
              around the points of a circle object.  This procedure analyzes
              the intensity of pixels adjacent to the patch being erased and
              adds pixels in the appropriate tail of the intensity distribu-
              tion to the patch.  Iterating simply repeats the procedure.  If
              edges of gold particles are left because points are not very
              well centered, try this option instead of just increasing the
              radius, as it will tend to erase just the remaining points on
              the edge instead of a whole ring of points.

       -merge (-me) OR -MergePatches
              Merge patches in the model if they touch each other, as long as
              the resulting patch is still within the maximum radius.  Patches
              from objects with points to be replaced on all sections are
              ignored.  This option should be used if an output model from
              automatic peak finding is modified and used as an input model.

       -skip (-sk) OR -SkipTurnedOffPoints
              Skip points in the model with contour values below threshold if
              they are not visible in 3dmod, namely if "Turn off below thresh-
              old" is set in the Bead Fixer, or "Turn off Low" is set in the
              Values panel of the Model View Object Edit dialog.

       -border (-bor) OR -BorderSize       Integer
              Size of border around points in patch, which contains the points
              which will be fit to (the default is 2 pixels)

       -order (-or) OR -PolynomialOrder    Integer
              Order of polynomial to fit to border points.  The default is 2,
              which includes terms in x, y, x**2, y**2 and x*y.  The order can
              be between -1 and 3, where 0 will simply replace the pixels with
              the mean of the border points instead of fitting to them, and -1
              will fill the area with noise matching the standard deviation in
              surrounding pixels.

       -exclude (-exc) OR -ExcludeAdjacent
              Exclude points adjacent to patch points from the fit; in other
              words, compute the polynomial fit to points that do not touch
              the ones being replaced.

       -trial (-t) OR -TrialMode
              Analyze for replacement points without writing output image
              file.

       -verbose (-v) OR -Verbose
              Print details on patches being replaced

       -PID (-PI) OR -ProcessID
              Output process ID

       -param (-pa) OR -ParameterFile      Parameter file
              Read parameter entries as keyword-value pairs from a parameter
              file.

       -help (-h) OR -usage
              Print help output

       -StandardInput
              Read parameter entries from standard input.

INTERACTIVE INPUT
       If the program is started with no command line arguments, it reverts to
       interactive input with the following entries:

       Input image file

       Output image file, or <Return> to place modified sections back into the
       input file.  USE REPLACEMENT OPTION WITH CAUTION

       Model file

       A list of objects which specify points or lines to be replaced on all
       sections, or / if all objects do so, or Return if none do.  Ranges may
       be entered.

       A list of objects which specify lines to be replaced, or / if all
       objects do so, or Return if none do.  Ranges may be entered.

       Size of the border around the points in a patch, which contains the
       points which will be fit to (/ for default of 2 pixels)

       Order of polynomial (/ for default of 2, which includes terms in x, y,
       x**2, y**2 and x*y)

       0 to exclude or 1 to include points adjacent to the points being
       replaced in the polynomial fit (/ for default of 1)

HISTORY
       Written by David Mastronarde  11/10/98
       Automatic X-ray removal and pioneer use of PIP input, 6/9/03

BUGS
       Email bug reports to mast at colorado dot edu.



IMOD                                4.11.0                        ccderaser(1)