Non-blind deconvolution with an alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) after noise reduction in nondestructive testing

To ensure the quality of material, nondestructive testing is necessary, and radiography testing is the nondestructive technique most commonly used today. For inspection, the quality of a radiographic image is critical, and there are many image artifacts that can reduce inspection accuracies such as noise or blurring. The deterioration in spatial resolution caused by blur in both the X-ray imaging itself and the noise reduction process are particular problems. To tackle them, we implemented a non-blind deconvolution method that employs the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) after noise reduction. Experimental results confirm that the proposed algorithm effectively restores edge sharpness. The 50% modulation transfer function of the restored image of a slit-camera was about 3.54 line-pairs per mm, which is about 2.5 times higher than that of the denoised image. Moreover, the edge preservation index values are about 0.82, 0.54, and 0.75 for the restored, denoised, and acquired images, respectively. Consequentially, the proposed method has the potential to increase inspection efficiency in industrial applications.