HIGH FRAME RATE EXTENDED FIELD OF VIEW ULTRASOUND IMAGING SYSTEM AND METHOD

• Main Authors: DETMER PAUL, JONG JING-MING
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 19.06.2003
• Edition: 7
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; COUNTING; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; DIAGNOSIS; GENERAL TAGGING OF CROSS-SECTIONAL TECHNOLOGIES SPANNING OVER SEVERAL SECTIONS OF THE IPC; GENERAL TAGGING OF NEW TECHNOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENTS; HUMAN NECESSITIES; HYGIENE; IDENTIFICATION; IMAGE DATA PROCESSING OR GENERATION, IN GENERAL; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; MEDICAL OR VETERINARY SCIENCE; PHYSICS; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; SURGERY; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ART COLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TECHNICAL SUBJECTS COVERED BY FORMER USPC CROSS-REFERENCE ARTCOLLECTIONS [XRACs] AND DIGESTS; TESTING

A 3-D ultrasound imaging system acquires partially complete image volumes interspersed with substantially complete image volumes. The partially complete image volumes contain speckle that is processed by a cross-correlation algorithm to track the movement of an ultrasound scanhead. By tracking the movement of the scanhead, the substantially complete image volumes can be properly registered with each other and combined to create a 3-D extended field of view image. The partially complete image volumes contain significantly less data than the substantially complete image volumes. Therefore, the partially complete image volumes can be acquired more quickly than the substantially complete image volumes to allow the scanhead to be scanned at a relatively fast speed.