Ultrasound coupling medium detection

An apparatus for determining a status of ultrasound coupling medium for performing an ultrasound scan, the ultrasound scan providing an ultrasound image frame including plural scanlines, the apparatus including:

• an ultrasound device for capturing the ultrasound image frame including the plural scanlines, each scanline having an associated set of intensity values;
• a memory storing a set of computer program instructions;
• one or more processors programmed with the set of program instructions for execution to cause the one or more processors to:
• process a subset of the associated set of values for each scanline to determine a first summation for each scanline;
• process, for each respective scanline of the plural scanlines, plural sets of corresponding intensity values associated with scanlines located within a predefined range of each respective scanline to determine a set of difference values for each respective scanline;
• process each set of difference values to determine a second summation for each scanline;
• and
• generating the status of the ultrasound coupling medium according to a relationship between each of the first summations and each of the associated second summations.

An apparatus for indicating a status of ultrasound coupling medium for performing an ultrasound scan, the ultrasound scan providing an ultrasound image frame including plural scanlines, the apparatus including:

• an ultrasound device for capturing the ultrasound image frame including the plural scanlines, each scanline having an associated set of intensity values;
• a memory storing a set of program instructions;
• one or more processors programmed with the set of program instructions for execution to cause the one or more processors to:
• process the ultrasound image frame to compare, for each scanline, a summation of intensity values associated with a respective scanline over a selected first range of depths of the image with a summation of difference values associated with the respective scanline over a second range of depths, each of the difference values being a value determined from intensity values from scanlines located within a width range of the respective scanline at a particular depth within the second range;
• and
• generating an indication of the status of the ultrasound coupling medium according to the comparison.