Point Spread Function (PSF)

The point spread function (PSF) describes the imaging system response to a point input, and is analogous to the impulse response. A point input, represented as a single pixel in the ideal image, will be reproduced as something other than a single pixel in the real image.
The image of a point source is blurred and degraded due to noise by an imaging system. If the imaging system is linear, the image of an object can be expressed as:

where (x,y) is the additive noise function, f() is the object, g(x,y) is the image, and h(x,y;) is the Point Spread Function (PSF). The ; is used to distinguish the input and output pairs of coordinates in this case.

The PSF need not be isotropic (radially symmetric).

 In ultrasound, X-ray CT, and radionuclide tomography it is typical to have a nonisotropic PSF for various physical reasons. In MRI it is possible to have either isotropic or nonisotropic PSF depending on the type of acquisition since spatial frequency coverage can be different for the two in-plane directions.

The output image may then be regarded as a twodimensional convolution of the ideal image with the PSF: g2=g1**h NOTE: Both * and ** are used to represent convolution where h is the impulse response, or PSF. In some medical imaging systems (e.g. planar Xray) the PSF can vary gradually over the field of view. In this case it is convenient to define a zone of constant PSF (isoplanatic region) to allow use of convolutional forms and the transform domain.

Optical (e.g. microscopy) also manifest asymmetric point spread functions due to lens imperfections (both material and geometry). It is typical for the PSF to degrade as distance from the center of the FOV is increased