Automatic detection of motion blur in intravital video microscopy image sequences via directional statistics of log-Gabor energy maps.

Intravital microscopy is an important experimental tool for the study of cellular and molecular mechanisms of the leukocyte-endothelial interactions in the microcirculation of various tissues and in different inflammatory conditions of in vivo specimens. However, due to the limited control over the conditions of the image acquisition, motion blur and artifacts, resulting mainly from the heartbeat and respiratory movements of the in vivo specimen, will very often be present. This problem can significantly undermine the results of either visual or computerized analysis of the acquired video images.