Abstract: A method of deriving a quantitative measure of a degree of calcification of a blood vessel such as an aorta by processing an image such as an X-ray image of at least a part of the blood vessel containing said calcification comprises: taking a starting set of digital data representative of an image of at least part of a blood vessel containing a calcification set against a background; estimating the boundary of the calcification; using inpainting to replace digital data in said starting set representing the calcification with data extrapolating the boundary of the background to extend over the area of calcification, and so generating an inpainted set of digital data; and computing the difference between the starting set of digital data and the inpainted set of digital data to obtain a quantitative measure of the degree of calcification of the blood vessel.

Abstract: A method of and apparatus for forming a final image sequence from an initial image sequence by adding new pixels to the original image sequence is disclosed. An energy of the final image sequence and its displacement field is defined in terms of one or more of (i) the local spatial distribution of pixel information of at least one pixel, (ii) the local temporal distribution of pixel information of at least one pixel, and (iii) the local spatial distribution of at least one displacement field between two images of said successive images that are displaced in time and the local spatial distribution of pixel information and displacement fields at the position in neighbouring images to which the displacement vector of a new pixel is pointing. The final image sequence is determined by finding a minimum or nearly-minimum of said energy.